Legacy of the Wolf
by MalkieriJester
Summary: A farmer, the scion of a forgotten legacy, struggles to cling to his humble roots as omens, prophecy, and the Wheel pull him towards war. Set in Randland in the Age that was birthed by Rand's Last Battle. Reviews appreciated. Beta found!(...and lost) Replacing chapters as they're edited. So far: ch. 1(prologue), 2, 3, and 4.
1. Prologue: The Peddler

**Prologue: The Peddler's New Role (An Awakening)**

Something was changing.

Was it himself?...no. He was sure he couldn't change. Couldn't be changed. He was done changing. But something bubbled. Seethed in his consciousness. A new awareness. He sensed…others. Others?

He was not alone in existence! Of course! He had known that, but still it came as an epiphany. Mankind. Those scurrying sacks of meat and inadequacy were still there. That was it. He had been blind to their existence? They had been free; scurrying along in their insignificance, while he had wallowed alone in the dark!

That was unfair. He had worked so very hard, for such a very long time, becoming so much more than any human could imagine. And he was here alone in the dark; they free.

_Longing!_

Oh, how he _longed_. A longing that ran through his entire being. It pulled at every expanse of his mind! He yearned for…for….

What did every bit of his being scream for? He could feel desire down to the core of himself. But he couldn't remember what that desire pulled him toward… he wanted…revenge...

_Revenge!_

Oh, how he longed for his revenge! Mmmm. Even the word was delightfully sweet. Revenge. He savored the word, savored the meaning, savored the anticipation. Oh, revenge would be amazing. Beautiful, bloody, horrible, nasty, sexy revenge. Revenge to pay for his time lost, wallowing in the dark. When he got his hands on…

Insane laughter burst forth. Hands. Ha! He could smell the rotting insanity in his laughter. He reveled in the comfortable skittering madness that was his. He wanted hands to wrap around throats. He wanted hands to grip his dagger and slice the living organs from their places…but the thought of being bound to a body again, to a single solid form, was so alien to him now that he would as soon give up his revenge...

He began to stretch his consciousness back…out…forward. He would have his revenge on….he strained to remember…

_He was formless. He could hear nothing and everything. There was nothing to see and he saw all of it._

_"Blood streaming, sweet crunching, bones crunching," one of his voices purred. They missed crunching, grinding, snapping bones, and yelling, screaming, crying terror._

_Dark, so dark. His place was dark. All of his souls liked the dark, which suited. He could not leave his dark place, it could not leave him. He floated through black night screaming, howling, dancing, gnashing, crying, raging, dying, killing. _

_He stopped._

_He smelled blood, tasted flesh. Skin to plait and eyes to cry. He tasted it on the air. He floated toward the living flesh. Much flesh, strip and braid. Many bones, crush and grind. His voices rose in discordant chorus. He could feel their terror ahead of him. His souls boiled into a frenzy. His voices sang their song as they began to feed:_

_"Flesh so fine, fine to tear, to gnash the skin; skin to to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams…"_

He remembered now. That was a part of him just as Shai'tan was a part just as Mashadar was a part. He wasn't Shai'tan or Machin Shin or Mashadar, they were all gone. He was more. And once he had Rand al'Thor to himself, al'Thor would find out just how much more. How that name hounded him…al'Thor. Rand al'Thor would be hounded, and scourged, and flayed, and kept alive just long enough to watch everyone that he loved treated with similar courtesies! Rand al'Thor was going to…he was… _al'Thor…was…already dead._

A howl issued forth from the prison. The being that howled did not realize yet that he was a prisoner. The nameless one howled in rage: a howl that broke mens minds and shook the mountains of the world. He had no name because he had moved so far beyond Padan Fain that it would be ridiculous to associate the two, and he howled at his lost vengeance.

He stopped raging. It may have lasted only a moment or possibly it stretched through eons; time was no longer, to him, what it had been. He had been robbed. His revenge had been stolen from him. AL'THOR! He had been there. He had arrived at Shayol Ghul in time. How had this happened? His change had taken years flowing upon years, he knew that not only was the so-called Dragon dead, but the grandchildren of his grandchildren's grandchildren were dust by now. The entire world was going to pay him what he was owed. The suffering. The glorious torment! He felt a quivering anticipation. Without having a physical form he needed to find new ways to exert his will. The world would learn suffering as he learned to deliver it to them…The nameless prisoner began to study those others that he had sensed.

There seemed to be several groups of other beings he could sense, each further from him than the last. Further was an insufficient term on this plane he now occupied, physical distance was meaningless. The last group existed..not as closely...from his existence than the first group.

The beings closest to his existence seemed to float in dull darkness, each group gradually showed more light, the light seeming to come from within themselves and at the same time suffusing them from one to the other so that they appeared to reflect the light from each other. The smallest group, which lay so far away from him that he did not think he could reach them with any amount of effort, was so bright that he cringed when he focused on them. The light came from everywhere around them and from inside of them at such intensity that it threatened to blast all of the darkness away from everywhere. Light. Blinding. Horrible.

He stretched toward those terrible bright formless beacons that disrupted his night. He would crush those first. Crush and grind and tear and rip. They weren't many, compared to those groups that came closer and closer to his plane. Several hundred stars outshining the numberless lesser lights. Grasped and fell short. Again he stretched his being forth, and met resistance this time. There was a painfully violent wall of nothingness between he and those few, most brilliant stars. He was aware of them, surrounding him, on the fringes of his universe. But he was incapable of snuffing out the lights. He lashed out in fury at those dim lightless forms around him. Viciously crushing hundreds of them he delighted to see that they ceased to exist.

He studied these. These were his. These he had the power to destroy, banish, crush and grind. They each pulsed with feral rage; touching one of them with his consciousness he found that he was caressing the soul, the soul, of some inhuman thing. It was familiar, and yet new. He could get a sense of this things self-image and it was some sort of huge animal. Hairy and fanged and horned and beaked. He began to crush this thing out of existence as he had the others when he stopped himself, a memory rising from his immortal depths, a memory of his mortal past. These were the trollocs. His old friends! He laughed madly in humor and excitement and hate and rage. The trolloc in his grasp quivered uncontrollably; inspecting it again he realized that the thing had gone mad. It must have not enjoyed meeting it's new master. He thought about tearing one of the trolloc's arms off and the dark soul jerked violently. He imagined snapping a hoof off of its leg and he could hear the tormented howling that issued forth. He knew that somewhere on another plane of existence, that trolloc was in a blind frenzy, feeling every whim that flittered across his own consciousness. Reveling in the horror, he released the beast and watched it continue to quiver and shake. He wondered if there had ever been a truly insane trolloc before. There was one now.

Those beyond this first group he found to be the souls of men. At first, his excitement was unbounded. Even at discovering that the faint illumination in these souls offered some resistance to his will, he found he could still torture them, and ultimately could even destroy them utterly. Eventually he realized that these were the souls of the already dead. And while crushing a human soul out of existence, ripping it from the Wheel forever was gratifying, he wanted the living to feel his retribution. He wanted to rape the world of life, not the world of death. Those past the souls of the dead, but just before those disgustingly brilliant stars out of his reach, were the souls of the living. The light from within these was almost unbearable and he began to destroy these souls and found himself rebuffed. The light that so annoyed him seemed to encase and protect these souls, he couldn't even touch them. The blasted Light held him back! In a furious and hate filled tantrum he laid about him destroying the souls of dead men and of living trollocs alike. Crushing souls, tearing souls apart, burning souls to ethereal ash that blew away on the winds of nothingness.

Stopping himself before he destroyed everything that he had any power over, he caressed the trollocs gently stoking their fear. He spoke to each and every one of his trollocs that existed.

"Come to me, my children. Come home to the black mountain. Bring your females to the slopes, and birth your young in my presence. Come, and after you obey me, you will feast on the flesh of Man."


	2. News from the Village

**Chapter 1 - News from the Village**

Wyland fished the kerchief out of his pocket and mopped the droplets of sweat from his brow before they could fall to the sheet below and wreck his tallies. Wyland was a tallyer. A thinker. Six days until the merchants arrived at Ni'Baras Stand to begin bargaining. With one day accounted for travel, that left him five days to finish the harvest. It had taken Jorle and him a week to harvest the four fields they had finished so far, with five of barley yet to bring in. The half-a-field-a-day pace he and his son had settled into was too slow by half.

Chin in hand, considering the numbers before him, he growled under his breath. Wyland had never heard it in himself, but when he growled in anger or frustration, he sounded fully as fierce as his father had. He cut off as he heard his son approach, and turned to look at him. He thrust out the sheet of flimsy paper that he had used to scrawl out his figures and sums.

"Jorle, tell me what this means." He searched his son's face, continuing his scrutiny even after Jorle pulled his eyes away to look at the paper held before him.

Jorle Ibara was already taller than most of the men in the Fifthland, almost tall enough to look Wyland in the eye. His shoulders were as broad as his father's, but he hadn't filled out with the muscle of manhood yet. The curly light-brown hair that was dripping with the sweat of a long day in the field lacked only for the touches of gray that had crept into Wyland's own wild mop over the last few seasons. Wyland had dark brown, almost black, eyes, but Jorle's were his mother's striking blue. More than a few of the village girls stopped what they were doing to stare when Jorle trailed his father into the village. Jorle always seemed befuddled when his father started chuckling every time they went to town. Wyland smiled at his son now, appreciating that innocence that he missed in himself, the innocence that he would not take back for all the gold of the Aiel.

"It means Ma and the girls are going to have to postpone their weaving, and help bring in the harvest," Jorle said, after a quick consideration of the numbers dangling from Wyland's outstretched hand. "Ma's going to be disappointed, Da, but I think Avilene and Shaundi will be excited to switch chores."

"Why do these numbers mean that?"

"Well, according to this, it looks like we'll need to work twice as fast as we've been all week."

"Good, son. Good." The hint of a grin still held on his face: he had plenty of reasons to be proud of his only son. "What else? Couldn't you and I just work the faster?"

"We could move that fast Da, you and I," Jorle said thoughtfully, "but I don't think we could keep it up for five days…" Jorle looked up then, blue eyes meeting brown. Contrasting eyes in such similar faces, "maybe we could do it at that Da; we've outstripped ourselves past believing before."

"I'm glad you believe in what we can accomplish together, but you were closer to truth in the former than the later." Folding the paper and slipping it into his belt pouch he slapped a hand on Jorle's shoulder and leaving it there turned him toward the cottage to head home. The Sun was disappearing behind the Dragon's Shelter "Anything more?"

"I think we could probably work a little faster and just bring the girls out with us." The boy paused then glancing uncertainly at Wyland, "I think we could leave Ma to her weaving and still get done." As he finished each word came out with more confidence.

"Good job, boy, all angles. That is the direction to look at any situation from." Wyland continued as they walked. "I'm glad that you can see beyond what you're told to find your own way. But I'll tell you why I'm going to ask your mother to put down her weaving and help us in the reap—against my own sense of self-preservation. You, Avilene, Shaundi, and I could get the barley in if you and I worked faster and the girls worked as fast as they could. But working as fast as we can against a deadline will make us sloppy. Better I apologize to Detra later, because her sure hand will let us do the job right." Looking over at his son he could see the lesson hitting its mark. "She won't like it, but she knows I wouldn't ask it, if it wasn't what the family needed."

Stepping out of the rows of barley, they entered the clearing that surrounded the farmhouse. The Ibara farm was one of the largest in the Fifthland, and had been for generations. The farm's proximity to the Forrest of Mists always kept Ibara folk wary, but Wyland's father had told him that was what kept Ibaras strong and watchful. There was an apple orchard surrounding the west side of the farmhouse, an orchard that never saw a true harvest. Generations of Ibaras had been buried there, and no one but Ibaras would ever eat an Ibara apple. East of the cottage stood a large pen where the sheep stood bleating in ignorance, attached to the sheep-pen was a barn that had been repaired and rebuilt more times than Wyland could imagine. Between the house and the Ibara men was a garden on the southern side.

On the north side of the cottage ran Whitechild road. According to oldwives in the Fifthland, children clothed in white had fled along that road to safety long ago while the men and women of the Fifthland had stood against evil. No one knew what evil, or why their children had been cloaked all in white, but the road had been called that since before Wyland's greatfather's father's time, and maybe longer.

Opening the back door, Wyland found his wife bending to pull a loaf of bread out of the low brick oven. He thought about sending Jorle on an errand that would leave him alone with Detra for a few Light-blessed moments, but Avilene came into the kitchen carrying a pot full of water and he knew it was pointless. The farmer walked over to his wife and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Hello, Light of my Heart."

"Hello boys." She smiled at the sight of him, after all the years since they had said their vows before the Light. "How is the harvest going?"

"Well enough Detra, well enough." The look he gave her said there was more to say. She only nodded, but he was sure that she already knew what he had left unsaid. Avilene had set down the pot and was smiling to see him as well. He took two steps and scooped her up into a spinning hug. "And hello my daughter! What have you done today, my dear?"

"I sat at a loom all day Da." Her dark brown eyes assumed the 'slightly wounded and much abused' look, Wyland couldn't help but smiling at her.

"All day, hmm?" Detra said from behind him. "All day at the loom may have been trying, but two hours weaving and the rest of the day dreaming and chattering should be nothing to speak of."

Chuckling, Wyland hugged Avilene again before releasing her. Avilene was only fifteen, but soon the Ladies Council would allow her to unbraid her long black hair and he would have to start chasing away young men every day. She was already taller than her mother, had a face that made the village boys stare, and a smile that lit up the entire village. She was carefree and her joy seeped into everyone around her. She was special, and everyone in the village knew it. She seemed to know it too. She never really shirked her chores, but diligent did not enter into it. She was goodhearted, but knew the effect she had on boys, and did not hesitate in using it to get what she wanted. Avilene wasn't selfish exactly…she just always seemed to get what she wanted. She was a blessing, and at the same time she often frustrated her mother. When Wyland was sure he had found the right young man, one he was sure deserved her, she would make the lucky boy very happy. And she would make sure that he made her very happy.

"Where is my other beautiful girl?"

"Shaundi is still at the loom." Detra said approvingly. "Wyland, Parn Alver sent Bant over after they all got back from Ni'Baras Stand today. He wanted to tell you that there is a stranger in the village asking questions after a Fifthlander. A man who spent his youth fighting in outland armies but disappeared quite some time back." She never looked up from the pot of water that she was busy turning into soup. "Apparently, nobody's been able to help this stranger find who he is looking for, although, Bant said he gave a very detailed description of you."


	3. Feather of the Dove

**Chapter 2 - Feather of the Dove**

The sun was just beginning to illuminate the horizon: the Light pushing back the ever-returning darkness. Prosht smiled at the daily affirmation of balance. Glancing around the village he surveyed the hodgepodge of tents and open campsites. Farmers and their families had been trickling into the village for two days, those too late to get a room, or too poor, had begun setting up an army of campsites around the village. Late in the night, the bulk of the outland merchants had arrived, taking up the rooms at the inn that were set aside for them. Today would start a week that was dedicated as much to frivolity as it was to commerce. Here in the Fifthland they celebrated the Harvest Festival. In Caemlyn and a few other large cities it was called the Festival of Thanks, it was celebrated everywhere: a thousand different places under as many different names.

Prosht and his Brothers had timed their visit to the Fifthland purposefully. Every person in the Fifth congregated at one of the five villages for the festival. Every man that farmed, herded, traded, or plied a trade (and every layabout) along with their families turned out for the Harvest Festival. Better five Brothers spend five days searching through the hectic festivals than eight or ten Brothers spend a month searching every farm and forest shack in the Fifthland.

* * *

><p>Many of his Brothers had overlooked this task when the Father asked for volunteers.<p>

"There is a man from the Fifth that we must find, Brothers. A soldier. I need volunteers from amongst you to go, find, and convince him to return here with you."

Laughable. A soldier? What need did the Servants have of a soldier? From the Fifth? When had the Fifthland last produced any soldiers? But as the Father spoke of volunteers a small white feather had fallen to the ground at Prosht's feet, and he knew it for a True Omen.

He hadn't looked up to see the dove flying overhead; he had simply bent down and picked up the feather, placing in his coat pocket. The bright blue aura around the small feather as it lay at his feet was a manifestation of his Talent, and it was enough to tell Prosht that the fool's quest into the Fifth was his. A radiant aura around an Omen signified that the Omen was True. A radiant _blue _aura signified that the Omen was meant for him.

Prosht was the only living Servant with a talent for Omens, and he was the only person ever known to have the Talent manifest itself in such a way that it indicated whom the Omen was meant for. _Omens of the Raven _was a required course during the second year of training for every Servant, but, without very extensive study, the subtleties and intricacies of Omenry kept most from putting any belief in the reading of omens. Once his Talent had been discovered, he had practically been locked in a library study room and force-fed every available text on Omenry. He would have chosen to study it on his own had he been given a chance. After all, what good was divining true Omens, if he couldn't interpret them?

Many thought it an Omen anytime a dove happened to lose a feather somewhere in their general vicinity. That was why so many thought Omenry unreliable at best. It was impossible to correctly apply _limited _knowledge to the way the Creator sent Omens. Every Omen was specifically outlined by necessary conditions. _If _you were out of doors, _and _the sun was completely unfettered, _and _you carried no edible thing, _and _your head was bare, _and _someone addressed a group about an undertaking, _and _a white feather from a dove fell before you, _then _that was a Dovefeather Omen. Knowing the circumstances and interpretation had only helped to shake Prosht's wits when he saw the Dovefeather land at his feet.

There was only one other record of a True Dovefeather Omen. Two thousand years ago, when Kandrol, King of Maradon, had crossed the Aiel Waste all the way to Rhuidean and rescued Elerin from a group of Wise Ones who had decided the Mother 'needed to learn _Ji_'.

At the Council of Elerin, every sovereign gathered had volunteered themselves, or their finest warrior, to undertake the recovery of the Mother. For many days and many nights heated discussions had played out with no progress made.

As Astoran, the last Seanchan Emperor, gave an impassioned speech on his singular ability to bring the Mother to safety, he had stopped abruptly, bringing a strange silence over the assembly. Eyes wide, hand shaking, he reached out to point at King Kandrol, who sat cross-legged staring up at the heavens with a small white feather resting on his knee. Astoran recovered himself enough to ask Kandrol if he had seen what bird had dropped the feather. Bringing his eyes down to stare at the feather, Kandrol had replied "A dove." Astoran had raised his voice again to address the assembled rulers, "King Kandrol of Maradon will rescue the Mother".

And Kandrol had done just that.

Elerin had arrived back in the Tower at Bel Tine. Two days before Sunday, she caught an assassin trying to kill the newly raised Father Banotil. Banotil was now regarded as one of the greatest leaders the Servants had ever known. Together Elerin and he implemented many just laws and he helped to avert at least two wars between large nations. If Elerin had remained lost and Banotil had been assassinated the world would surely have known chaos. Receiving a True Dovefeather Omen was tantamount to being given a charge by the Creator directly.

Later he had shown Father Caldon the feather and told him of the blue aura. He had been placed at the head of the group to find the Fifthland soldier and told to commandeer any 'volunteers' he thought best able to assist him.

Jontan, Baggin, Bern, Saml, and he had been in the Fifthland for a week. They met via Gateway every night at a remote clearing they had scouted. Ferryton, Deven Ride, Ahmerlins Field, and Baerlon had thus far yielded the same results as Ni'Baras Stand: none. But today began the festival and Prosht was confident that today would find his soldier.

Draining the last of the milk from the cup that the innkeeper's wife had given him, he rose to his feet. At that moment he saw three things. The sun peaked over a mountaintop to the west. A cart rounded a bend in the Whitechild road leading west out of the village driven by a solitary farmer. And a bright white aura surrounded both the sun and the man.

The soldier was riding into town.


	4. A History

**Chapter 3 - A History**

Wyland was blessed with just as much force of will as any man in the Fifth, if not a touch more. He wasn't so much taller than most as to be out of place. Or so much wider. As a youth he had never been remarked for speed, or for being uncommonly lucky with the girls. But Wyland always seemed to have others at his table asking his advice.

Twice he had turned down the mayorship. The second time Trin Turalde and Bonl Seen had been so adamant that Wyland had moved his family in with his cousin Ton's folks up near Ferryton. Wyland didn't worry much about Trin; the innkeeper was feisty but wouldn't say 'up' to Wyland if he knew that Wyland was adamant about 'down'. But Bonl...Bonl's father had been the town blacksmith before Bonl had finally taken over. Bonl had been swinging hammers at the forge when most boys were still wobbly-legged chasing their ma's apron strings. Bonl could knock a man senseless without exerting himself.

Bonl had told Trin that Wyland was going to be mayor if he had to be punched in the nose so that somebody with some wits could slip the medallion of office over his head while he was senseless on the ground. Wyland had kept his family in Ferryton for two months, and even began letting rumors get around that he was looking for a buyer for the farm. The Village Council finally grew tired of the game and elected Bonl instead.

When Wyland brought his family through town on the way back to his farm a few days later he stopped by the forge to congratulate Bonl. Only his quick reflexes saved him from a broken nose. "On principle, and for the charade of selling that farm that everyone knows good and well that you would die defending." Wyland was certain that half of the reason Bonl had been so adamant on electing Wyland was because he wanted to avoid the Mayor's Medallion himself. Nobody would be able to put a finger on exactly what it was that made Wyland different from the other men of the Fifthland, but every single Fifthlander that met him knew that he was different.

Wyland no longer noticed the steady creak of the cart that disturbed the early morning darkness with regular protestations, Wyland's mind was focused elsewhere. Four nights ago he had saddled Zarine after the workday was done and headed east down Whitechild Road to Parn Alver's farm.

* * *

><p>Riding atop Zarine would have made most men look foolish; the Andoran Pullhorse was almost as wide as two men abreast, and tall enough that not a man in Ni'Baras stand could look her in the eye. Wyland's solid figure did not look foolish atop the draft horse. He looked imposing.<p>

At Parn's farm Wyland had shaken Bant's hand and thanked him for bringing the news of the stranger, ruffled Brenl's hair; though he was five years younger than his brother, Brenl was only a hand shorter, and given Liggy a hug and an apple pie that Detra had baked. Every man who had ever seen her agreed that Ligwin Alver was the most beautiful woman in the Fifth. Wyland felt that she was a very close second to Detra Ibarra. Liggy was just a bit taller than her husband, with lustrous dark brown hair that fell all the way down her back in soft waves. Her striking green eyes almost detracted from her face of fine white porcelain, until she smiled. Kings would ransom palaces for that smile. Her slender frame held just the right curves to make men's mouths go dry. It was a very quick hug.

"Wyl! It's good to see you!" Parn's smile was the only redeeming feature in a face marked by sun and thickness. Of an average height, and above average belly, years of farming in the near-wilderness had turned the round softness of Parn's youth into a stolid roundness that still shook when he bellowed his hearty laughs, but told of an iron core.

"And you Parn, and you."

"Master Ibarra, why is that stranger asking questions about you?" Brenl squeaked. His curiosity was as well-known as his prankish nature. Both were also known to get his hide tanned with regularity.

"I don't know Brenl." He could see that Brenl was not going to accept or believe that for an answer.

"Then why does he have-"

"Liggy, why don't you take the boys in and bring out my pipe and tabac." Brenl looked ready to keep at it, but the sharp look from his father, and the grip of his brother dragging him into the house, cut him short. "Will you take some wine, Wyl?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Come on and lets us talk of the Dragon."

The formality would have been odd in anyone other than Parn, but Wyland was comfortable with his jovial use of over-formality; Parn used what he saw as silly or needless formality to lighten moments and make friends smile. It always worked on Wyland.

"Let us talk of the Dragon, Master Alver." Chuckling a little, he took the rough wooden chair next to the one Parn plopped himself heavily into. Liggy came back carrying a wooden tray laden with a dented wine pitcher, two flagons, and Parn's pipe and pouch. Setting the tray between the men she turned to Wyland.

"Give Detra our thanks for the pie; it's been ages since we've enjoyed one of her apple wonders."

"I'll be sure to, Liggy." Wyland said, smiling.

After Liggy was back in the house and the flagons were full of dark red wine, Parn filled his pipe and handed the pouch to Wyland. Handing Wyland a striker he scraped another along the sole of his boot and used the flame to light his bowl. Taking a few contented puffs, he turned his head toward Wyland and asked, "How goes the harvest, old friend?"

"Well enough. Detra has set aside her weaving to help and the girls are happy enough to get away from the looms for a while. We'll have it in on time for the festival, if just."

Cocking an eyebrow Parn blew a ring of smoke before he started laughing. "Oh, I'll wager she's overly happy about that!" his belly shook with mirth, "Do you want me to send Bant over? We finished pulling in the apples yesterday."

"Thank you, but I think I'll already be paying whatever price she sets, so I might as well enjoy her company in the field for a few days, it seems like I hardly get to see her this time of year." Wyland pulled from his pipe, and exhaling, took a drink of wine. "You know I'm not here to talk about crops, Parn."

"I know it, but there is always room in a conversation for crops."

Wyland decided it was time to force the conversation away from the harvest, "Who is this stranger in town?"

"Well, he says he's come from Caemlyn, but his accents mind me of that northern merchant that never pays market price for anything. Says his name is Prosht." Stopping there, Parn picked up his flagon and took a sip, slowly enjoying the flavor.

"Leave over! Must I drag every detail from you? I can't imagine why anyone from Caemlyn would be asking after me, but it's the sort of thing that may not be a boon! What's this stranger after?"

"There aren't many details to be dragged. He's been in the village for a day or two; he's been asking a load of questions of anyone who'll talk to him. Questions of every sort; is the weather normal for this time of year, how are the crops this season, has anyone seen anything out of the ordinary, has any livestock gone missing, he's spent quite a bit of time with the Wisdom, apparently trying to find out if the winds carry any messages to her ears. But the one thing that he asks everybody is whether or not they've ever met you. He doesn't give your name; he says he's looking for a man named Conl Brandiwyn, Captain Conl Brandiwyn, but the description he gives could paint a picture of you fine enough to hang over your mantle."

The smoke from Wyland's pipe seemed rough and choking of a sudden. Coughing it out, he whispered, "Brandiwyn? You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I'd hear about some stranger asking after you and not do my best to find out what he's about?" Concern bled through the joviality on his face. "What is it? Do you know this stranger, or this Brandiwyn?"

"No," Wyland answered, shaking his head, "I don't know anybody called Prosht, but I knew Captain Conl Brandiwyn." He stopped there taking a long draw off of his pipe. Slowly he let out the blue-gray smoke and seemed to brace himself. "I've never told you much about the time I spent outland. Haven't really told anybody very much about it, in fact."

"A man's stories are his own." Parn reached over and clasped a hand on Wyland's shoulder. "Nobody begrudges you the right to tell what you will and hold back what you see fit. Everyone was sure interested to hear about it when you came back, after ten years or more, but mostly just because we all like to hear rumors from afar. Your past is yours, and if you want to leave it behind you, then it's not for anybody else to drudge up."

Smiling gratefully, Wyland said, "It seems that what I wanted left behind is trying to track me down. What I tell you stays here between you and me, all right?"

He waited for Parn to nod, and then continued. "When I decided to leave the Fifthland, I thought I wanted to try a new life, so I decided I would do it with a new name. I chose Conl Brandiwyn. Conl is a family name, and you remember the great love I had for drink back then; I figured brandy and wine were as good to be called after as anything else.

"Not very long after I left Ni'Baras Stand to see the world, I found myself in Caemlyn. I was trying to find work, just something to make a little coin to get me on to the ruins of Tarvalon; I'd always wanted to see that great ruined city of some long lost age. Well the only work I was able to find was as a soldier for the Queen. Soldiering didn't sound very appealing to me, but when you're starting to get hungry you take what you can find.

"I found out that I was pretty good with weapons, first the sword, then the spear, then I picked up a hammer. Not many soldiers carry a hammer, Parn, and for good reason; the weight of a hammer can slow you down. In a fight, speed is the same as life. I was training hard every day with the weapons that I was given, and I was getting good enough to start attracting attention.

"One day a grizzled old, gnarled-up, hunk of oak tree with the knots of a Captain of the Queens Guard on his shoulder saw me sparring against two other recruits. After I beat them both and grounded my practice sword, the Captain called me over to him and said 'Put down that sword, son. You are good, but you will never be a blademaster.' I asked him why he thought I wasn't good enough; after all I had just picked up a sword for the first time weeks before.

"He told me I was so big and so muscular that he didn't think I would ever achieve the lithe grace required to earn a heron. The Captain, his name was Tram Oldspir, told me to find a war hammer, and when I stole, bought, or borrowed one, that he would show me how to use it." Tapping out the remains of his pipe he replaced it in his coat, and emptied his flagon.

"Oldspir taught me the hammer, trained me personally. A captain training a raw recruit! He worked me for endless hours with a hammer I had found collecting dust in a blacksmith's shop. As I repeated form after form, Oldspir told war stories. He told me about battles and skirmishes, victories and losses and the whys and hows of both.

"He told me when he was done with me I would be a match for any swordsman, my strength was enhanced by the tactics used with a hammer, and I was fast enough with it that I would force swordsmen to defend first and look for an opening second, or if they weren't very smart, they would just lose their forehead to my hammer without recognizing the need to defend first. I enjoyed learning from him, I didn't think I would ever have a lot of use for it because I was still planning on skipping out of the Guard and travelling the world on my own, but the learning was fun nonetheless."

"Then Queen Mindrelene declared war on Mayene. Their dominance of the southern coasts had led them to begin squeezing the trade down the River Tearendrelle. So I found myself fighting for Andor in the Sea Trade Wars. My comrades came to call me 'Conl the Hammer'."

"As the 'The Hammer' I rose through the ranks of Her Majesty's Guard. By the last battles of the Trade Wars I was a Captain. When the armies of Mayene finally limped back to the coast, Andor had guarantees for safe passage down the Tearendrelle and through any waters controlled by Mayene. Tram Oldspir had been raised to First Sword, Captain General of Her Majesty's Armies, Defender of Andor. A long-winded title for a long-lived man. Upon my return from the front back to the city, General Oldspir told me that I was to be his replacement, he had decided to retire."

"I won't lie to you Parn, I felt a thrill of pride then. I had worked hard and I felt like I had earned the post. But as I opened my mouth to thank my mentor I saw a vision of the ten years I had spent arriving there in his chambers. Ten years of blood and violence and death. A decade spent taking lives and losing friends. More horror than any man should ever have to see."

"I knew then that I was going to return to the Fifth. I was done with the world out there, done with war and killing men. I resigned my position and told him that all I wanted was the peace of a farm. I apologized and left Caemlyn the next morning. I came back here and vowed to leave that life behind as completely as I had left this one ten years earlier. I never talked about any of this because I didn't want to remember it. I don't know why that stranger is looking for me, but I'm going to tell him he can turn around and go straight on back to Caemlyn."

Parn shook his head and whistled softly through his teeth. "You're a war hero, Wyl."

"A war has no heroes, Parn. And I wasn't there, that was a man named Conl."

* * *

><p>Glancing back from his seat atop the cart, Wyland saw that the load of barley was still riding fine, those sacks in the back of the cart and all those strapped to the four pack mules strung out on a rope line behind the cart; it had been a good year for his barley. The sun was starting to rise; he had risked the road in the dark and traveled most of the night to arrive in the village early. He hoped to sort out this stranger and send him on his way early enough so he could send back to the farm for Detra and the children, so that they might make it to the village by dusk.<p>

Jorle had not been happy about being left behind, not with the festival starting and especially not with Wyland going to meet this stranger, but he knew the tone of voice that brooked no argument. He had only mumbled quietly to himself about it being "foolish going alone looking for this stranger nobody knows anything about" as he walked away from the cart and back into the house.

The cart team reached the curve of the road that led into the village and as the main street came into view, the sun crested the trees behind him. In the middle of the street stood a man he had never seen before. The man held his ground as Wyland rode forward. His eyes seemed to bore into Wyland as if searching the depths of his soul.

"Hello, Captain Brandiwyn. I am Servant Prosht."


	5. Prosht Tells a Tale

**Chapter 4 "Prosht Tells a Tale"**

Stepping down from the cart and bowing deeply, Wyland offered the greeting due a Servant: "My thanks for your Service in the Light. I am Wyland Ibara of Ni'Baras Stand, my house stands ready in the Light." Holding his bow he waited for the response.

"My honor to serve, the Light shine upon your house, that it be strong against the night." Prosht seemed to imbue the words with the same respect that Wyland held for them. "I am overjoyed to hear the old forms held to here in the Fifth. Surprised, I'll admit, but overjoyed. Are the respects still taught to all the children of the Fifthland?"

Wyland answered as he straightened, "I am afraid not Servant, I was mentored by an Andoran from an old House. Tram Oldspir held the Servants with the same high respect that I do. I taught my children that respect, but to most in the Fifthland the Servants of All are as a myth."

"I suspected as much," Prosht said ruefully, "Since my arrival my dress has not brought a single question or even so much as raised an eyebrow."

"We all know the stories, and of course any child of the Fifth could tell you that a Brother wears the Black Livery and a Sister, the White, but none would associate a man in black clothing to the legends they've grown up with. I think my people assume that Servants walk around with the bright Light of the Creator issuing forth from both eyes and the mouth. People don't expect legends to walk into their village and take a room at the inn."

The Servant nodded and a grin momentarily flashed across the stony features of his face. "I suppose that is to be expected. Sometimes I fear what is lost in our focus on duty. We are all so sure that duty ties us to the nations and their leaders, to the great cities and great happenings. What treasures go unfound in the lands of the meek? Which leads me to my purpose Captain Brandiwyn. You."

"My name is not Brandiwyn, Servant Prosht." Wyland said, shaking his head slightly, "I am not a captain nor an unfound treasure. I don't wish to be rude, but what is your purpose, Servant?"

"Perhaps. So you do not know Conl Brandiwyn? Captain Conl Brandiwyn?"

"Conl Brandiwyn died a long time ago in Caemlyn. When the Queen offered to give him a position he knew better than to accept." Wyland said more rudely than he meant. "What is your business in the Fifthland?"

With a patient smile Prosht said, "That is a longer story than standing permits cordial company, will you accompany me into the common room?"

"Allow me to settle my team," Wyland said with a hint of lost patience, "and I shall meet you in the common room."

Bowing as deeply as Wyland had for him, Prosht said: "Of course, I'll await within."

* * *

><p>Coming into the common room through the back entrance Wyland saw the Servant sitting at a table in a far corner, he pulled Trinl to the side before going further, "Trin, this conversation must not be fodder for village gossip. Please see that we are not overheard."<p>

"A matter of course Wyl." Trinl said as if he wouldn't be trying to listen for any tidbit he could spread to liven up his custom tonight.

"Thank you Trin." Wyland resigned himself to the fact that anything Trinl Turalde could overhear would be expanded into interesting gossip over tankards of ale as they were paid for throughout the day.

Wyland saw that no pitcher sat on the table as of yet. "Trin, we'll take two sniffers of Brandy and a flagon of wine, please."

"On it's way, Wyl."

He wasn't lying; as he spoke his daughter appeared with exactly that order on a tray, placed it all on the table in front of the Servant, and whisked back down the stairs to the cellar.

"Master-not-Brandiwyn, I am afraid I have you at a disadvantage..." the Servant said as Wyland approached the table and took a seat.

"Mmm? How so, Servant Prosht?" Wyland eyed the man in black warily, raised the brandy to his nose and indulged in a whiff before tipping it back.

"Well you see I know so much of you, where you've been. Where you are going. What you are meant to do. Yet you know nothing of me." Prosht said almost solemnly.

"I know all that I need know of you, Servant. You are sworn to serve mankind and the Light against the darkness. Enough and more than any man needs know. But what is it that you think you know of me?"

"To tell you about you, first I must ask if you know much about the history of your home and your people?" Prosht didn't have the smug look of one lording knowledge over another, but the solemn look of a man who needed another to listen.

"I know that we have always been people of the land, farming, living...and fighting only very seldom." Wyland said as he sat back and removed his tabac pouch from his coat.

"This is true enough. Do you know where The Fifthland pulls it's name from?" There was a slight twinkle in the dark eyes of the Servant then, as if he hoped Wyland ignorant, only so he had the opportunity to teach.

Wyland thumbed a bowlful of tabac into his pipe and offered his pouch to the Servant. Prosht declined, only staring intently at Wyland with dark eyes full of depth, knowledge, wisdom. Those eyes commanded Wyland's attention, even if the Servant's words had not.

"Of the eight lands that banded together to form New Andor, we were the Fifth." Then he ran a striker across the table and used it's flame to light his pipe.

Smiling, Prosht leaned forward and said; "It's true yours was the fifth of eight temporarily warring factions to join the whole and create Andor once again." Grabbing the pouch and filling his own pipe after all, he lit it not with a striker, but with a flame that appeared suddenly over the bowl of his pipe from nowhere. "But the Fifthland was called The Fifth long before that." Pouring wine from the flagon into both tankards, the Servant continued: "The Fifth goes back to the time of th Dragon and his Steward.

"You see the Dragon, an Aielman, conquered Andor in the name of his beloved: Elayne. Elayne was the rightful heir but could not take the throne on her own because one of the Dark One's Forsaken held Andor in thrall. When the Aiel took a city, they claimed one fifth of the wealth of that city as their own. Instead of offering up one fifth of Caemlyn's wealth to her Dragon, Elayne gave over a fifth of her lands to Rand al'Thor. This land became known as the Fifth.

"The Dragon, Rand, was so busy conquering the non-Seanchan world that he named one of his trusted generals that was born in the Fifth as his Steward. This general, known to history as The Wolf King, was Perrin Aybara. House Aybara was the first to declare for Aviendorina al'Thor as the rightful Queen of what had been Andor, House Aybara was, through Failgon Aybara, House al'Thor's staunchest ally. It was the fifth signatory to the New Andoran Pact on the insistence of Failgon as a symbolic honor to Rand al'Thor's Fifth.

"After the Andoran War was won Aviendorina would have given Failgon anything he wanted; he and his people had earned it. Without House Aybara, al'Thor would have given in eventually to one of the other six claimants. The Queen would have married Failgon, wanted to desperately if some histories of the time are to be trusted, but Failgon was in love with a girl from the Fifth. All he asked from his Queen was that the Fifth be left alone. Left to govern herself in perpetuity under allegiance to the crown of Andor.

"While perhaps disappointed, Aviendorina could not refuse the fierce warrior who had helped win her crown for her. She allowed that the Fifth land to swear her allegiance should pay the fifth part of it's harvest to the Crown, and it's continued faithfulness, and nothing else, leaving the Fifth in the hands of Perrin's progeny in perpetuity."

Shaking his head, Wyland interrupted Prosht, "Aye, we pay our tax to the Andoran Crown, but no 'progeny' rules here. Fifthlanders are a free folk, bowing and scraping to no lord or lady but the Queen."

"This is true today, Wyland Ibara, but only because Failgon would not suffer the trappings of his post. Failgon named mayors for the freetowns of the Fifth, taking Ni'Baras stand for his own. He didn't pass rule to his children, but allowed his people to choose their mayors as had been the tradition of his people time without memory." Prosht sipped at his wine before continuing, "But before Failgon, Fifthlanders, or Two Rivers Folk as they were known then, had sworn their lives to House Aybara. Your people were vehemently faithful to the man who had led them in the Victory of the Light, and his heirs after him. Knowing that they owed their freedom and their very existence to the Dragon and his Steward."

Stopping Prosht abruptly, Wyland said, "This doesn't explain to me why you are here dragging my past back to me where it is not welcome."

"Because 'Ni'Baras Stand' should properly be called 'Faile ni Bashere t'Aybara's Stand' and you, Wyland Ibara of Ni'Baras Stand, should properly be called Wyland Aybara of 'Faile ni Bashere t'Aybara's Stand'. You are the direct heir of Perrin Aybara, The Wolf King. The rightful heir to the Stewardship of the Fifthland. And the world is in need of the heir to the Dragon's Steward."


	6. A Breaking

**Chapter 5 "A Breaking"**

The Harvest Festival ended and the next morning the Aybaras were up before the dawn and on their way back down Whitechild road as soon as the sun was visible above the dewy and frigid fall morning. Jorle was handling the reins of the mule team and chattering as excitedly and incessantly as the girls. Wyland sat astride Zarine following his family on the cart, and keeping enough distance that the intense recount of every detail of the festival that his children were engaged in was no more than a high pitched rumble punctuated with the occasional squeak that he was sure could be heard all the way back in the village. He let Zarine have her head and the mare plodded along after the cart. Every so often he noticed Detra looking back at him with a smile, her eyes twinkling as no others could. He had to stop looking at her, she distracted him too much; how did she expect him to get any thinking done while she was flashing those eyes at him with those smiles? He let his eyes roam the wood beside the road, spotting a squirrel running up an evergreen and occasionally a songbird lilting a melody amongst the branches. His mind was occupied; reliving his conversation with the Servant.

Wyland had done his best to be polite while still making sure that the man understood that he wasn't buying any of the story. And he was not going anywhere.

"_Servant Prosht, I am very sorry. You have wasted your time in coming here. I don't know what is going on in the world, and I don't know who or what the world needs, but I do know that it is not me. My children need me, my wife needs me, and I them. I'll be staying where I truly am needed. I hope that you and the world find whoever it is that can help you."_

_The Black Brother's eyes took on an intense cast that spoke of the hardest things: steel and stone and _cuendillar._ "I am not going to take you back to the Towers against your will, Wyland. The world does not need a prisoner, it needs a champion. But know this: The Wheel weaves us into the Pattern, and neither asks the permission of the thread. You are destined to fight in this battle, struggle against it as you may, but those the pattern has chosen to shape history cannot escape it. If you were just a simple farmer you could choose any path you like, but you are not. Walk willingly along your path or suffer the Wheel's forcing."_

Wyland told Detra that he needed to go hunting to sort some things out for himself and left Jorle and the girls with her to settle everything in: curry and stable Zarine and the mules, unload the supplies and organize the cellar. He needed to clear his head. He grabbed his hunting knife, his longbow and quiver then let his feet lead him into the woods. As he stalked through the forest that had yielded game to his arrows since childhood, he thought back to his life outside, his life in the foreign world beyond the Fifth. The brothers in arms he had grown to love as a family. The mentor who had taught him so much. The things he had learned, the places he had seen. But mostly his memories kept returning to the lives he had seen ended, the lives he had ended himself, the blood and the pain and the entrails and the wails from the]ose already dead. The horror. These memories confirmed to him that he had made a good decision. He would not leave his home once again to go out into the wide world and suffer the tragedies of war. A war that he still could not believe was real. If the man, Prosht, had not so obviously been a Servant of All, part of the Black Brothers and White Sisters, Wyland would have laughed him out of the Inn. Ancient evil and monstrous foes indeed! Every child knew the Dragon led the world against the Dark One and ended all that terror so long ago that his greatfather's greatfather's greatfather had learned it from his greatfather who had grown up with the same knowledge. Talk of 'The Light' and darkness was just a comfortable cloak that one was given from their parents and in turn passed to their children out of tradition. Whatever evil the Dark One had inflicted on the world had ended at the Last Battle.

Mulling over all the things that were vying for his attention he almost stumbled right on top of a young buck that was nosing the ground in a clearing just ahead of him. He was lucky that he happened to glance up just in time to stop himself from startling the four-prong prize. Wyland was not the best archer in the Fifth, but he was better than most and this buck was a bare twenty paces from him. He raised his bow, silenced his thoughts, took a slow breath, drew back, and released. As he watched the arrow leave his bow, speeding straight for the hart's heart, a branch came crashing down from above and would have split his scalp if he hadn't jumped back as soon as he heard it. Unfortunately the deer jumped forward as soon as _he_ heard it and Wyland's arrow went sailing through the air where the kill shot had been a moment before. Wyland stepped over his bane, the branch, and went to retrieve his arrow. He found it laying on the forest floor, the broadhead split in two. His arrow, that should have stuck in the heart of his dinner, had found the only rock that stood high enough to get in the way for a league in any direction. And his steel broadhead had yielded against the stone. It was time to go home. Today was obviously not a good day to hunt. He left the arrow, broken head and all, turned for home, and made for the cottage. There were hours left yet for hunting, but Wyland was a bit shaken by his shot at the deer seemingly foiled by the very hand of the Creator. He did not waste his time getting home; the woods were normally a place of peace and reflection and solitude, but now he wanted nothing more than to be out of the forest, that and maybe a mug of ale. As he stepped out of the woods into the clearing around his farm he decided to go talk to Parn. His old friend always lent a good ear to help him settle his mind.

Opening the stable door he set his bow and quiver inside and took Zarine's saddle from the shelf. As he saddled the pullhorse he considered going inside to tell Detra where he was going, but decided to just head on and make sure he returned by dusk so she would not begin to worry. He walked Zarine out to Whitechild road and then mounted and started off at a trot, and feeling a need to reach the Alver farm quickly, he dug his heels in until they were racing along the road at a full gallop. There are not many sights or sounds to compare with an Andoran Pullhorse galloping; it is a thundering spectacle that can turn a simple ride into an adventure. He slowed to a trot a league from the Alver farm, then reined up and dismounted, walking Zarine the last stretch to cool her off.

The race he had just run to stay mounted on his over-sized horse had raised his spirits; his hair was wind-blown, his face flushed, and he was smiling. Leaving Zarine to graze in the yard he went to the door and knocked. After knocking and waiting thrice he had to admit to himself that the Alvers must have stayed in the village an extra night.

Turning back to Zarine he said, "Come on girl, let's go home. I had hoped to have things worked out better in my head before I explained it all to Detra, but things are just not working out today. Let's you and I walk a while and maybe you listening to my troubles will be enough."

He grabbed the reins and left out on foot. Talking everything over with Zarine on the way home did prove helpful. She was an exceptional listener. By the time he walked her back into her stall and brushed her down it was starting to get dark and he felt better about what he was going to say to Detra. His eyes were adjusting to the twilight when he realized there was no light coming from the window by the back door. He would have expected Detra to be in the middle of cooking dinner. He returned to the stable and took a lamp down from the wall, used his knife and the flint kept on a shelf next to the lamp to light it. As Wyland entered the kitchen through the back door he hung the lamp on a peg on the wall and bent down pull his boots off.

The floor was wet…and red. He jerked his head up, and there under the table where she had served her family dinner every night was his Detra lying on her side, one arm pinned underneath her and the other reaching toward a gash across her throat that couldn't really be there.

"NOOOOOOO!" He screamed

Flinging the table out of his way he knelt in his wife's blood and gently took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. The eyes that smiled at him in his youth and always sent a thrill through his body, the eyes that had shown him the truth and depth of a love that had not ebbed no matter what life brought, the eyes that had not grown older but more beautiful, were staring up at him, lifeless. His hands began to shake so badly that he took them away from her face, unable to watch her pale waxen features tremble from his convulsions.

He began to rise, comprehension was a mountain cat preparing to pounce on him, he knew it was there and that it would come crashing down on him with lethal force, but his mind refused to admit it was there because the alternative was death. A whisper of movement behind him brought enough clarity for him to react, spinning he glimpsed steel flashing toward him, he sidestepped and quicker than thought slammed his hunting knife into the heart of the murderer. His attacker collapsed and he bent over to roll the body over and retrieve his knife before he searched the house to make sure the kids were all right and that there was not another murderer in the house. When he looked into the face of his wife's killer the mountain cat pounced with more violence than his stomach or his mind could handle. He wretched up the contents of his belly, and passed out before he could remove his knife from Avilene's chest.


	7. Prosht

Chapter 6 'Prosht'

Caldon had always been a mentor to Prosht. Granted he was a somewhat stern and very demanding mentor, but Prosht would not have had it otherwise. As a novice Prosht had seen straightaway that Servant Caldon was the most demanding person at the Towers. After watching him and sitting in a few of his classes he saw that while Caldon was fair, he was sparing with his praise. If he expected you to learn something he would never say "Good job" or "Excellent" or even "Very nice" as some of the more encouraging instructors did. The most you could expect out of Servant Caldon for learning something that everyone was expected to learn was a "Yes" or "Correct". He never chided or scolded those that learned slowly, you would see him speaking privately to certain students who required multiple explanations, and then a week later that novice would be having private lessons with Caldon. And rarely, oh so very rarely, he would be heard telling a novice or one of the Pledged "Excellent" or "Very well done" or maybe "That was exceptional". And you knew that because Caldon was saying it that it really was exceptional or excellent or very well done. That had earned Caldon the immediate respect of the young cobbler's apprentice from the north.

* * *

><p><em>Prosht had been an apprentice cobbler for five years when he promised his service to mankind and the Light. Those five years had been a hard life spent working for a hard man. Bognol was the best cobbler in the city; his shoes were always in demand, from the durable boots he made for yeomen and the like to the finely detailed slippers that made more profit per shoe than any ten pair of work boots. Just as highly coveted were his apprenticeships. If you could survive working for Bognol you were sure to be a successful cobbler.<em>

_When he arrived at the alley entrance behind Bognol's shop, the cobbler was waiting outside with the door pulled shut behind him. The shoemaker was a slight man, a little shorter than average with bushy white eyebrows that jutted out from his face like wild hedgerows. His calloused hands looked harder and stronger than any two hands Prosht had ever seen in his life. His narrow face did not smile to comfort the small boy arriving at his doorstep._

"_Say goodbye to your parents boy, you'll not be seeing them again until after the thaw." Bognol's voice was flat and clipped. It had none of the joviality that made his father's voice special._

_Prosht turned and hugged his mother, "Prosht, you must work now, and listen to your master. I love you my Runt Bear." His mother's dark reddish brown hair smelled of smoke and soap. It always smelled of smoke and soap, it was the smell that told Prosht he was home, he was safe. Now he was leaving that smell along with every other part of his home and his family. Then his mother stood and fled the alley._

_He noticed that the shoulder of his coat was wet where his mom had placed her head while she hugged him goodbye; he had never seen his mother crying but realized that she must be doing so now, it was scary. His father grabbed his shoulders and squatted down in front of him looking into his childish grey eyes with their mature mirror._

"_Son, you maybe do not understand why it is that you must leave us now and go to work, you will tomorrow or the next day. I expect for you to work hard and make all of this that you can, yes? Your older brother should be here becoming a man, but if I would have given Barus to this shoemaker he would have been fired tomorrow and no craftsman in the city would trust me to take a son of mine again. You I trust to work hard and learn. Bognol is one of the finest craftsmen in the city, you do whatever he tells you to do, yes? Tomorrow or the next day you will see why you must do this thing, but today I need you to work hard and obey, yes?"_

"_Yes, da." Prosht nodded. His da hugged him then. A hug that was half wool coat in his face and half black beard scratching against him and half the smell of ice pepper fields and half the smell of sweat._

"_I will see you tomorrow or the next day, yes?"_

"_Tomorrow or the next day, da." His father grabbed his shoulders again and turned him around to face his new master, then his father's hands were gone and he could hear him walking away down the alley._

_Bognol had thrown everything Prosht owned on the waste heap: "Rags have no place here, you will have work clothes while you are here. Take those shoes off. No apprentice in my shop will disgrace me by wearing filthy, ragged, poorly made shoes. I do not give away shoes for no price. You will have something to wear on your feet again when you can make shoes for yourself that I will not be embarrassed for you to be seen in."_

_It had taken a year of walking barefoot through the city on Bognol's errands, the older apprentices calling him Blacktoe, and Bognol shaking his head through an untold number of shoes and boots. But finally Bognol smiled and let him wear his first pair of boots._

"_Very good Prosht. It takes most of the young men who come here to learn two years or more to cover their feet again, your feet will have these fine boots to wear, yes? You are doing well." It was the first compliment he had heard come out of the master. And it drove him to earn another. He had continued to work hard, learning everything Bognol had to teach him. The next compliment he received from the cobbler came four years later._

"_Prosht come here to the back." Prosht followed his master back through the narrow hallway that separated the shop from the workshop in the back._

"_Yes, Master?"_

"_Lord Mowscoff has come from Dragonsweep to ask after a cobbler. Dragonsweep's cobbler is dead and it is me he knew to come to for a young cobbler to make shoes for his town. You are younger than the men I usually send out into the world to bring them fine shoes, yes? But you are ready."_

"_But master, it is Gregoram's turn to be raised."_

"_Turn? There are no 'turns' here boy. When I send a man out into the world to make shoes, I send my reputation with him; no man carries my reputation with him until I say he is ready, yes? You are ready, Gregoram maybe tomorrow or the next day, yes? If you go with Lord Mowscoff he will have a good cobbler for Dragonsweep, if you do not I will apologize to him and say that I do not have any apprentice ready for his own shop." Grinning wider than he had ever remembered grinning in his entire life he had scooped up the skinny shoemaker and spun him around his own workshop. His master beat him over the head with a boot sole until he set him down._

"_Thank you master, thank you so much!"_

"_Do not thank me Prosht, I give you nothing. This you have earned, yes?"_

"_I am not thanking you for giving me a shop of my own; I have earned that, yes?" He grinned at the look of consternation spreading across Bognol's face. "I am thanking you for everything you have taught me. You are truly a master. Thank you for teaching me, master."_

_The look on Bognol's face as Prosht dashed out the back door was one of the best gifts the old man could have given him. It was a mixture of pride that paid for all the short nights and blistered fingers, and the Year of the Blacktoe, and all the rest. He sprinted home to tell his family the news. Two days later he had ridden a mule that belonged to Lord Mowscoff at the tail end of a train of mules that belonged to Lord Mowscoff. The mules were mostly loaded down with more important cargo than cobblers: silks, ice peppers, dyes, tabac. The trip to Dragonsweep had eventually led him to the Towers and away from making shoes, not toward a life of making them._

* * *

><p>His footfalls echoed down the corridor as shadows danced about the walls. He went over things in his head as he made his way to the Chamber of Light. He disliked returning to the Towers empty handed, but he had decided to bring his Brothers back to their duties and inform The Mother and Father of the situation with Wyland Ibarra. Then he would return to the Fifth and wait, he needed to be there to bring Wyland back to the Towers, he knew that from the Dovefeather, but the farmer would not come willingly, he needed to be pushed somehow. Prosht did not know how but he was sure that he would bring the world its Captain. The Passions sat at their desks in the waiting room that led to the Chamber of Light. Kimrana Lantin had been The Mother's Compassion since before the current Mother had even entered her name in the Novice Book. Short and plump, Kimrana had the kindly face of a farmwife tending her greatchildren, with light brown eyes that were always on the verge of a smile and a mouth that almost always was smiling, she was the physical embodiment of everything her post represented: care, sympathy, empathy. The White Livery of the Sisters suited her just as the Black Livery of the Brothers suited her counterpart. Daldwin Morgen was neither tall nor short, but he was <em>wide<em>. His every feature was wide: eyes and mouth and head, but most especially, shoulders and arms and chest and legs and hands and feet. Daldwin had been named The Father's Fury seven years ago when Padlia Tain had stepped down and retired. Padlia had been fiery in her every movement breath and action. Daldwin was stoic and quiet. He didn't seem to fit the role of fighting for justice and righteousness with every breath…until you saw him when he heard of wrongdoing. He was…implacable. Fire seemed to boil forth from his eyes when he demanded some action of the Hall of Servants. Grey had just begun to creep into his hair above his ears and his blue eyes were cold and bright.

"Servants, I am come to see the Mother and Father."

The Compassion and the Fury rose as one, turning in unison to face Prosht. Kimrana's face lit up the waiting room, Daldwin's might have still been focused on whatever report he had been reviewing prior to Prosht's arrival.

"Prosht! I am so very glad to see you returned to us." Her smile was infectious and Prosht felt himself grinning in spite of the fact that he was not pleased with what he had to tell the Mother and Father.

"Welcome Servant. What business do you bring to the Mother and Father?" It wasn't that the Fury's demeanor was cold, it was just decidedly _not_ warm.

"I have come to report on the status of a mission I was tasked with."

"I will announce you, wait here." The Fury turned and, using not the large double doors that were the main entrance to the Chamber of the Light, but one of two much smaller doors that flanked the main entrance; one just to the left of the Fury's desk as it faced the right wall and one just to the right of the Compassion's desk which faced the left wall.

"How was your visit to the Fifthland?" Kimrana's cheery voice was tempered by age, but still held the joy and love for life that she had been spreading to everyone around her since long before Prosht had met her.

"It was interesting but a little disappointing, Kim. The people there are unique, and stubborn. The entire village of Ni'Baras Stand lied to my face, almost all of them so badly that I knew straight off they were lying, but I'm sure they knew that I knew they were hiding something and nothing I did could wheedle out the truth. If Wyland Ibarra hadn't ridden head first in to meet with me, I can't be sure that I ever would have found him. And Ibarra himself…"He trailed off as the double-doors opened and Daldwin emerged beckoning Prosht to follow him.

"We can talk more later if you like Prosht, I love to hear more about the peoples I've never been able to meet myself." She reached out and squeezed his hand as he turned to follow the Fury.

The Chamber of the Light was a large round room where the Mother and Father received supplicants and visitors that didn't require the grandeur of the Hall of the Servants. The Chamber was grand enough and more for Prosht: onyx floor tiles alternated with white marble broken only the by the Servant's Seal bordered by three inches of gold directly in front of the raised floor where the white and black desks of the Mother and Father overlooked the Chamber. The domed ceiling was power wrought crystal detailed with reproductions of the beauty of nature. Hummingbirds hovered near snapdragons, eagles soared majestically across the dome, a pack of wolves chased a buck across a meadow, trout leapt from the water of a lake, all infused with the golden rays of sunlight that lit the Chamber. A seamless mirror lined the wall all the way round, even covering the doors, the lines of which seemed to disappear when the doors closed leaving only handles to mark the exits. At night the crystal dome shone brightly so that the Chamber of the Light was never dark. At night the Chamber was a beacon lighting up the night sky, shining fiercely against the dark.

He came to a halt next to Daldwin on the ancient seal, a circle half black and half white separated by a sinuous line. Prosht knelt and Daldwin spoke, "The Servant Prosht has come with tidings and asks leave to speak."

"Rise my son." Caldon sat behind his black desk wearing a simple black wool shirt.

"Speak freely Prosht, we are glad to see you." Maradath Comlin was a rose in full bloom. Her long black hair hung straight down her back contrasting the pure white gown that would have been at place at any court in any land. Her dark eyes were snares that men had to be wary to avoid getting trapped in. She never wore anything provocative, but her figure refused any attempt she might make at disguising it. Striking did not come close to describing Maradath Comlin Mother of the Servants, Protector of Mankind, The Flame of Humanity. Tradition said that The Mother of the Servants was the Flame that the world looked to for hope against the night and The Father of the Servants was the Fang of Justice against the dark. Throughout the history of the Towers that had been truer of some pairings and less than true of others; some Mothers had been the ferocious crusaders of right while some Fathers had taken a calmer and more soothing tone. Prosht felt that Maradath and Caldon were the two people that those traditions had been formulated for. Exactly.

"I have come to report that our travels into the Dragon's Fifth were successful inasmuch as I located Captain Brandiwyn, though that is not his name. But unfortunately I believe that convincing him to leave his home for the good of mankind is going to be a difficult proposition."

"I have never known you to balk at a difficulty, my son. Why have you returned without our warrior?" Caldon's voice was not reproachful, the question was sincere, but Prosht could not help but feel that he was letting down this man he had looked up to since he was a very young man just out of Dragonsweep.

"I returned with my Brothers to allow them to return to their other duties, I do not think they will be of any more help now that we have located the Captain, a man named Wyland Ibarra. I also wanted to relay to you a little about this man. Then I plan on returning to the Fifthland and returning with Ibarra tomorrow or the next day." He paused to breathe and order his thoughts, "Wyland Ibarra is a man whose is stubborn to the point of fallacy, I was able to gauge the stories I had heard about him against the man himself when he came looking for me, and I will tell you that 'Fifthland stubborn' is no idle saying. I do not believe that anything anyone can say to him will convince him to leave his family and farm to fight a battle, much less a war. He left the Fifth as a young man and fought for Caemlyn in the Trade Wars as you know. He was offered the post of First Sword of Andor, instead of accepting and becoming a man of power and gaining wealth and lands, no doubt, he told Tram Oldspir that he had seen more blood and death than he could stomach. He returned to Ni'Baras Stand, retook the plow, and has never regretted it since. He does not wish to return to a life of violence, and I do not believe he would leave his family even if he did. I will return to the Fifth, with your leave Mother, and yours Father, and I will bring Wyland Ibarra back with me, but is not a matter of finding the words to bring him. It will be a matter of waiting for his destiny to find him, and then guiding him here once that happens."

"You are as insightful as ever, my son." The Mother was not the one he had worried about convincing, but if she approved then Caldon would be hard pressed to naysay her openly, "I believe that you know the right of this better than we, I also know your judgment to be sound, Caldon where is your mind on this?"

The Father of the Servants took his time answering, considering Prosht for a long moment. "We may not have all the time that we could hope for. We just received word that trollocs are raiding south of the blight. Four raids in the last two weeks in Mandragori. No trolloc has been seen south of the blight since the Dragon Reborn defeated the Dark One at the Last Battle. The horrors of the night are reawakening. If mankind does not rouse out of the stupor of peace soon, it may be too late. You know better than most the tidings of war. It is coming my son. We do not even know what we are up against, no incursion into the blight has returned for over two years. We must start preparing the world, our warnings are falling on deaf ears. Go back to the Fifth and bring back the scion of the Wolf. Sooner rather than later. or we may all suffer the consequences."

"Thank you both for the audience, my honor to serve." Bowing deeply, Prosht turned and let the Fury lead him out of the Chamber. Once outside in the waiting room he made his apologies to Kimrana and left straight out for the traveling ground; he was going to be back in Ni'Baras Stand before sunlight gave way to darkness.


	8. A Man Lost

**Chapter 7 "A Man Lost"**

Malon despised the office of Mayor. Every time a farmer argued with his neighbor, who listened to them both blather on about property lines or grazing rights or whatever else dirt-diggers found to argue about? Malon Tarkiss. And any whore who couldn't keep her legs closed cried to none other than he about getting the child tithe out of the man she accused of seeding her garden, and countless other mind-numbing trivialities of life in Broptov. Would that he could give back the black-and-gold checked vest of office, and stop being forced into listening to the vile minutia that was his neighbor's lives. He reminded himself that Broptov was on its way up in the world and he smiled. He needed to talk to Ifan and Buris today; they would either join him today or he would send them to meet the Great Lord.

He finished the last of his _kaffe_ and rose, returning to the bedroom to get dressed for the day in the candlelight that struggled impotently to keep the dark at bay. He pulled on the green wool breeches that matched his fur-lined cap that would cover his bald pate today, and then shrugged on the white shirt with a bit of green vine embroidered along the sleeves and collar. As he bent over to grab the ugly vest that he wore every, day an inhuman voice spoke up behind him and froze his heart, breath, and stomach.

"Are you ready human?" The voice was the sound of snakes slithering through dead leaves on a freezing autumn morning.

Malon dropped the gaudy vest and turned to prostrate himself, but never made his way to the ground as a white hand, icy-cold and iron-hard, clenched his throat and slammed him back against the back of his wardrobe. The shirts and coats hanging about his head did nothing to obstruct the eyeless face that filled his vision and clenched his heart in its icy grip. He could not have breathed if that hand grabbed his shoulder any more than he could now that it threatened to crush his throat. He had never seen pallor to match it; if the deathly-white shade of its skin along with that waxy tone was stomach-wrenching, the smooth skin that covered the place that eye sockets should have been was terrifying.

"Are you ready to do as you were bid? The Great Lord's patience is…less than infinite." When the Myrddraal released him he crumbled to the floor of the wardrobe like so many ragged shirts. Gasping for air he reached for his throat trying to assure himself that it was whole. "Well?"

"I am here to serve the Great Lord of the Dark. I have already persuaded many to the Great Lord, and am close with others. Some though will not be persuaded, those will be dealt with when there are less unfriendly eyes to see and make trouble. I am faithful, I swear it. I need just a little longer. Please, just a little longer; I will not fail, I promise."

"The Great Lord grows weary of your excuses, human." The voice hardened now; it took on a deadly edge. It was no longer the snake slithering, but a sword slicing through that snake and biting into the cold ground beneath. "You are not prepared to pay the price of failure, but pay it you will. The Great Lord does not allow unpaid debts. You will bring the rest of the humans here to us, or you will get rid of them. Or I will get rid of you." The bloodless lips twitched upward then and conveyed just how much the Fade would enjoy that. The eyeless face was more than scary, there was no word Malon could think of to describe the pure evil it showed then, or the sheer terror he felt.

"It will be as you say, of course it will, I will do my duty, I will not fail Him. I swear it, I do…" As he continued to babble out assurances the Fade stepped into a shadow in the corner, turned, and was gone.

When he was done crying, Malon wiped his face with his hands and climbed up off the floor of his wardrobe. He disrobed and donned new clothes before he returned to the wardrobe to clean the urine that his bladder had been incapable of holding in its terror. From underneath his bed he retrieved a large chest that held daggers. He had already half-emptied it. Some of the daggers that were missing were now in the possession of people who had agreed to follow him on this new path to greatness. Some sat in a much smaller chest, which he had hidden more thoughtfully under the wooden planks of his kitchen floor. Those daggers all had bits of paper tied to the red hilts with initials on them; they were to be given more violently than the others.

The first time he had received the _honor_ of a visit from one of his master's creatures, the Myrddraal had ordered him to take the office of mayor. The Meeting of Men had just reelected Borst Prudin as mayor and would not hold another election meeting for two years. He had arranged the accident that left Borst at the bottom of his own stairs with a broken neck. The fall hadn't quite done the job so he had to break his cousin's neck himself, the bad dreams that followed lasted two weeks; better the dreams than finding out exactly what the Myrddraal kept alluding to about failure. He was elected mayor two weeks later; the next visit came on the night of his election.

* * *

><p><em>Malon breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his cloak tight against the breeze that carried the biting chill of early spring in Sibern as he walked out of the common room of The Frozen Stag. He had been confident walking into the meeting that he would be elected, but as the vote started he'd begun to dread the result. He had certainly called in enough favors to get elected twice over, he hoped, but his nerves began to fray nonetheless. In the end he had won more than twice as many votes as any of the other men whose names were in the discussion.<em>

_The new mayor shut his door behind him and turned to the stand next to the door to find his flint and the lamp he kept there. Once the flame was flickering nicely in the lamp he replaced it and turned for the fireplace. His was choked off by the bony white fingers of a Myrddraal._

"_No screaming human. Do not call your neighbors to their deaths with your bleating." The Halfman's voice turned his bowls to water just as his eyeless visage froze his heart in his chest. The Fade released him, starting a chain of humiliation that hurt, but felt natural in the presence of his inhuman guest: he crumpled to the floor so that he was lying where his water pooled as he lost control of his nether region, his scream came out as a pathetic whimper, and he heard himself begin to cry. In short, he reacted with the total aplomb which he had mastered in his first encounter with this creature. Recovering enough to rise to his knees, he kept his head bowed so that he could avoid that eyeless stare. He focused on the Halfman's black boots. The creature turned on his heel and walked to the corner of the room. The mayor had to look away even from the Fade's feet: the bottom of the thing's cloak didn't move at all as it walked._

"_Tonight the other humans in your village agreed for you to be their leader. You have done as our master commanded you. I have brought you a reward." Malon brought his eyes up to where the Myrddraal stood across the room. In the thing's right hand was a curved dagger with a small ruby set in the silver wire-wrapped hilt. "This is your true badge of office, human. This is the token that marks you a servant of the Great Lord to his other faithful. Stand up you quivering meat sack. Come to me and claim your prize. Most are not so ornate as this."_

_Malon gained his feet, if somewhat unsteadily, and walked hesitantly toward this creature that every fiber of his being told him to run _away_ from. The Myrddraal held the dagger out on the flat of his palm. Tentatively, oh so slowly, incrementally, Malon stretched his hand toward the dagger. The milky white snake that flashed out from under the thing's black cloak and grabbed Malon's wrist confused him at first. The he realized that the snake was the Fade's left arm, and that was what was holding his arm out in an iron grip. The creature shoved black the sleeve of his thick coat to expose his arm almost to the shoulder._

"_And this," The Halfman drew the flat of the dagger blade along its own tongue, "is your first Da'rol." He rasped. The blade didn't cut deep, but the Myrddraal ran it across his upper arm for three inches. The pain was searing. "A Beauty Mark. It will fester for a week. The pain will last four. It will heal black; proof of your standing in the Great Lord's eyes. Collect them with pride, for when we have scoured the world Da'rol will mean power. When you meet a sack of meat with more Da'rol than you, obey. One with fewer, order. The same number? It pleases the Great Lord that his followers be inventive; eliminate them or bend them to your will or be bent by theirs."_

* * *

><p>The thing had left the large chest with instructions that he give a dagger to every man and woman of Broptov; either to wield as a servant of the Great Lord, or to sheath in their heart. The daggers in the chest were less worthy than his: there was a raised metal nub that rose through the leather grip that had been lacquered red, but they all had the same curved blade. The festering wound left on his arm had been foul and the intense burning pain had lasted all of the four weeks that the Halfman had promised. He did not get any sleep that month. Of the eighty-three curved daggers he had been given he had presented fifty-one and tied initials to eighteen. It was time to decide the fate of the rest. He slid his own dagger into the top of his right boot and two of the lesser into his left.<p>

He slid his vest on and then grabbed his deep blue coat, opened his front door, and stepped out into the early morning chill of mid-autumn. He threw his coat over his shoulders as he walked along the dirt street that led to Ifan Irlank's shop. Ifan had always intimidated him. The blacksmith had been large long before he started his trade and gained the muscle of the forge. Malon was optimistic about his meeting with Ifan, but had prolonged it out of fear; Ifan was known for his violent rages, and had killed the man whom he had been apprenticed to in an argument over pay. A Questioning had been pursued, but painstaking it was not: no one in Broptov had liked the old blacksmith much, and were they supposed to execute the only blacksmith they had to replace him?

The forge was quiet as he approached, but the glow of fire told him that Ifan was there. He walked through the front of the shop and called out Ifan's name as he entered the back.

"Mayor." Ifan grunted in response. Large did not come close to the blacksmith of Broptov. Immense was closer. He stood head and shoulders over every other man in town, and if he laid his left shoulder on the ground his right would tower over most of the children. His height was the smallest part of his enormity. His leather jerkin strained to cover his massive chest and his thighs were bigger around than most of the trees in the forest surrounding the town.

"Can you spare a moment? I have an offer for you."

* * *

><p>Malon could not help but grinning as he exited the forge and headed toward the mill. Ifan had been almost eager to pledge himself for the Great Lord of the Dark. Even more to the mayor's liking the blacksmith had <em>asked him<em> for two more of the daggers so that he could approach his brother and their uncle himself. His Uncle Tormin already had his own token, but he told Ifan to stop by his house in the evening for his brother's dagger, and one for his good-sister too. With the exception of the miller, Buris Stromke, and mayhap one or two others, the rest of his list were folks he couldn't be sure of. The rest could sheath their daggers for all of him. Unless one of his number spoke up for them, he would call them forfeit and consider Broptov ready for the next step.

The sun had risen a bit and the air didn't carry the chill that had accompanied him to Ifan's door. He nodded to a few of the townsfolk in passing, smiling at one or two of his true followers. His feet carried him toward the river as he congratulated himself on his handling of Ifan Irlank. He felt like dancing, maybe he would organize a festival before he called due the Great Lord's price. He followed the path out of town and toward the river and at the fork he kept left, heading for Buris's mill instead of right towards the farm of Rasput Infrek. When he reached the mill he rapped twice, quick and hard, on the door. Buris's son, Jorow, opened the door of the mill.

"Mayor Malon, hallo. Come to see Pa?" The youth was a black-haired tragedy; shorter even than his father and fat to boot. His striking yellow eyes only made him more of an oddity.

"Yes Jor, will you tell him I'm here?"

"Of course mayor, please come in. Have a seat by the window, I'll fetch Pa." The boy's smile would have been fetching if he hadn't been so fat. And if it weren't for his strange eyes. Malon sat down in one of two roughhewn alder chairs that were arranged in front of the only window. He slid the miller's dagger out of his boot and concealed it up his sleeve: enough of the townsfolk were his now that he could risk shoving the steel into the man's heart if he proved reluctant.

"And grease the wheel!" Buris shouted back, over his shoulder as he came into the room turning his attention to Malon, "I'll make a miller out of that fat son of mine yet mayor. He may not know it, but I do." Buris Stormke was a hand and a half shorter than Malon, and skinny like a sapling; all sinew and bone. "What can I do for you today Malon?"

"Buris!" Rising out of the chair he shook hands with the miller. "I have a question for you."

"Oh, and what is that?"

"Are you tired of giving a third of your toil over to Lord Moscov and Drangonsweep?"

"You know that I am, I've told you as much over ale at the Stag, yes?"

"Buris I want to make you your own man. I am going to keep what I earn, and I think that you should too."

"Hmm?"

"Why should we pay for Moscov's feasts and suffer the hard winter in poverty?" He paused, trying to gauge the reaction. "I would have you keep what you earn, burn Moscov."

"Sounds like a revolution, yes?" The miller's dark brown eyes narrowed. "I'll not be part of a revolt Malon. I don't like paying what Lord Moscov thinks is his, but I'll be no part of rebellion. What you're talking is dangerous."

"It is dangerous, for Moscov. I do not mean that we should take up arms and march on Dragonsweep. I have pledged us to a great army, and most Broptov has agreed to follow me. We will be entitled to rewards you cannot even imagine."

"What kind of rewards Malon?"

"We will live forever, and instead of being ruled over by Moscov, _we_ will rule over all of Sibern, or even all of the Borderlands!" He could feel the heat rising within him, knew that his eyes showed the passion that filled him. "No longer must we please others, Yes? They would please us!"

"You are scaring me Malon." Buris said as he took a step back, "You want to kill the pig when all we should do is keep a little more of the slop for ourselves. I think mayhap you should rethink whatever it is you are doing, yes?"

"You do not realize the power I am coming to you with Buris, I'm not asking you to join some rebels who want to overthrow the Lord of Dragonsweep and the King of Sibern you fool. I am offering you the chance to say yes to the Great Lord of the Dark!"

"No! I don't know what foolishness you have tangled yourself up in Malon, but it is not good. You must needs explain this to the Meeting of Men, yes? This is not what we raised you to mayor for."

"You do not understand old friend," stepping up close to Buris he planted the cheap curved dagger into the miller's chest, "Answering no is not an option." He let the scrawny corpse fall to the floor, the dagger he had given him pointing to the ceiling through the man's back. "I wish that you were smarter."

He retrieved his own dagger from its hiding place and moved to the doorway, "Jor, come in here for a moment." He slid to the right and waited. As he came in from the mill, the fat youth screamed when he saw his father's body on the ground, Malon slid in behind him and sliced his throat open from behind. "Your father was too stupid for you to live." He would need to go to Rasput's place and tell him that he had been visiting at the farm all morning, but that would not be a problem; Rasput had been one of the first men he had given a dagger to.


	9. A New Web

**Chapter 8 "A New Web"**

The Black Tower of Althoran housed all of the Brothers in its upper reaches and all of the Dedicated and male novices lived on the lower levels. The Father had his apartments near the top of the Black, just as the Mother had hers atop the White. The matching, opposite, towers rose so high above Althoran that only the sharpest eyes could make out the Bridge of Compromise that stretched from Black to White or from White to Black, depending on your perspective, connecting the drawing rooms of Mother and Father. The bridge started, at its bases, the same color as the tower it adjoined, then blended seamlessly to grey in the middle: a symbol, both of the compromise between Aes Sedai and Asha'man that formed the Servants of All as they were now, and of the compromises that would be necessary along the way to keep the Servants whole. At ground level the building that both towers grew out of, called the Common, held all the offices and libraries and kitchens and storerooms and dining halls and everything else that was a part of the Towers that was not exclusive to either the Sisters or the Brothers. A large dining hall for Servants was placed equidistant from each of the Towers on the eastern side of the Common, there was a dining hall for male novices and one for Dedicated in the Black and another each for female novices and Accepted in the White. The entire structure, if seen from above, was the ancient Servant's Seal with the Black Tower rising out of the Father's Fang and the White from the Mother's Flame.

Somewhere between novice and Father were Prosht's rooms. He was not going to waste time climbing to his room and returning to the traveling ground, so he caught a Jenn man, clad in his _cadin'sor,_ on his way to the open courtyard that was reserved for Traveling. He asked the Aiel man to deliver a few things to his rooms for him and barely waited long enough to return the man's bow before hurrying on. He was sorry for being even _almost_ rude to the Aiel man, of course the tall pale-eyed man did not show any sign that he had been affronted, nor would he, but Prosht always made sure to be more than courteous to the Jenn, he felt that the Brothers and Sisters should set the example for novices and Pledged. Pledged, whether they be boys and Dedicated or girls and Accepted, were usually one extreme or the other. They were pillars of virtuousness and propriety, or they were rebellious and headstrong beyond believing. Prosht was in the habit of neither encouraging nor reprimanding the Pledged, they were no longer novices after all, he merely set the example that he thought best and allowed them to decide to follow it or not. Luckily his rushing of the Aiel was done in private since there was no one else walking in the hallway. Every year the Towers received a few Aiel who had decided to leave clan and sept to enter the service of the Servants of All. At the age of ten years the Aiel taught their children the Dragon's Truth. After learning that their forbearers had betrayed the Servants of old by being faithless some Aiel decided to return to the task that had been left behind. They dropped their spears, wrapped themselves in the Way of the Leaf, and made for the Towers. Every boy and man that arrived dropped to their knees before the first Servant they found and said "I am ashamed of my fathers, my people have _toh._" As for the women and the girls they were ashamed of their mothers but agreed about the _toh_ of the Aiel. They came at all ages from ten-year-old children to greatmothers and greatfathers past seventy and none were turned away. Regardless of clan or sept or society these were the Jenn Aiel, the True Aiel. Prosht didn't know what the rest of the Aiel felt about the Jenn, but the Jenn seemed sad for the "Lost Ones".

He had to stop himself from running. Servants did not run along the corridors of the Towers, Servants were in command of themselves. Prosht did not know why he felt this sense of urgency; after all, it was like to be weeks, or even months before he could get Wyland Ibarra to return with him to Althoran. He did feel it though. He didn't notice the carvings or crystal or wall hangings or anything else from the Chamber of the Light to the travelling ground. After he registered his trip with the Dedicated assigned to keeping the Travel Book for the week, he wasted no time in stepping out onto the Leaving Yard and danced that exhilarating dance that came when he seized the One Power. He quickly spun a gateway to the clearing in the Fifth that he and his Brothers had used to meet with each other during their search. He stepped across leagues and rivers and when both feet were firmly in the Fifthland, he released his gateway. Turning in the direction of Ni'Baras Stand Prosht adjusted his pack and started out.

Sometimes when he walked Prosht liked to whistle songs to pass time and liven his spirit, this time though, he did not feel like whistling. The silence that he exuded seemed to infect the forest. He didn't hear any birds singing their songs, he startled no game. The forest, and then the road, seemed to feel his mood; and both were content to foster his brooding. He kept his eyes open and scanned the roadside as he walked, but nothing disturbed the tree line nor the hedgerow, which left his mind ample room to wander. He had been worried about a particular passage of the prophecies that he had studied before he led his companions in search of the soldier those few weeks ago. He worried for Wyland.

"_A son of the wolf and the falcon, _

_Bound to the Wheel and reborn of blood._

_He will trade field for field for field for field._

_In his wisdom we will shelter, by his fury be forged._

_A father of woe and of heartache. _

_A triple sacrifice to scourge his heart._

_Once the lost; for the legacy he will leave._

_Once his heart; for the world's awakening._

_Once the innocent; for Light's slim hope."_

He was certain that the prophecy spoke of Wyland; Father Caldon had convinced him of that before they even knew his real name. There were a number of prophecies that were becoming relevant to their current age and Andor's young Hammer had marked himself in more ways than one. Prosht was worried about the '_triple sacrifice to scourge his heart'_. He did not like to think that one man would have to have his heart scourged for the rest of the world to know hope. He didn't like it for the man in question, and he liked it no more for what it implied for the world. Dark times seemed to be rolling toward them, with hidden dangers and unknown paths. The world had fought a few wars in the time since the Last Battle of Rand al'Thor. But the biggest of those had been when the Aiel had broken the Seanchan Empire more than two thousand years past. The nations of the world were not prepared for what was coming. An army of men hacking and slicing away at another army of men was bad enough, but mankind was in for a shock when they had to stand face to snout against the evil that was reawakened in the north; contending physically with someone that was trying to kill you was more and enough for any man. But they would now be asked to struggle with their worst nightmares trying to kill them. Prosht shivered. His Brother, Baggin, had used one of the _ter'angreal_ stored in the Black storerooms to bring the images of shadowspawn to life. He had studied as much of the old texts as he could find and reviewed all the paintings and tapestries available, and then he had called a meeting Sealed to the Light.

**DDDDDDDDDD**

"_Mother and Father, Sisters and Brothers, for those of you who I have not yet made acquaintance with, I am Servant of All Baggin Frodus. I have called this assembly for all Servants, but closed to all others, because I want to show you what I believe we will be facing in the battle to come." Baggin was a short man, slight of frame and light of complexion. His light brown hair matched the color of his eyes, and his face was more suited for laughing than for the serious cast it took now. "I have taken time to study the appearance of the shadowspawn that came to destroy the world in ages past. I would like to prepare the Servants, in some small way, for what we may soon have to battle."_

_Baggin turned away from the twelve hundred strong assembled Servants and lifted a crystal sphere, slightly bigger than his fist, from a pedestal that had been placed in the center of the Hall's floor. "This _ter'angreal_ creates real images from the channeler's mind. Men and women both can use it. Now I will use it to show you all what you will see when face to face with trollocs, myrddraal, and draghkar. First I will concentrate on trollocs. This is the most difficult demonstration because of the immense size of trollocs and the number of images I will display simultaneously. As you all know, trollocs took many forms. Man twisted with goats, or bears, or eagles, or various other beasts." Baggin grew silent then and a look of deep thought overtook him. Suddenly a line of three creatures…appeared…in front of Baggin. The things were massive, Baggins' head barely cleared the waistline of the monsters, they were atrocious! All hair and snarls and feathers and claws and matted fur and beaks and hooves. The sheer foulness of what was before them caused the Sister sitting next to Prosht to faint. Prosht caught her and with his right arm held her upright. Quick as thought he reached out, seized saidin, and Healed her; she shouldn't miss the rest of this demonstration, Prosht was sure that tomorrow or the next day she may be glad that she was able to faint here surrounded by Servants, instead of in the field surrounded by trollocs._

"_Thank you Brother. Forgive me," Her pale features returned almost to their normal pallor as she blushed, "I was not prepared for the size of those things…nor…their…wrongness?"_

_It was half statement, half question. As if she wasn't sure that the words she used were sufficient. He understood. "No cares Sister, under the Light I almost became sick myself." Prosht stopped talking and returned his attention to the floor of the hall as Baggin resumed._

"_To the best of my knowledge and ability this is truly what trollocs look like. They are immense, as you can see, towering over even the tallest of men. These are only a few incarnations of the abominations that have been recorded and hinted at: a goat trolloc, a vulture trolloc, and a bear trolloc. With so many at once it becomes difficult to imitate the movements of life, so Mother and Father, if you will allow, I will now release the goat and bear to focus on the vulture." He looked up toward the dais that raised the Ahmyrlin Seat, Mother and Father seated side by side upon it, slightly above floor level. The Compassion and the Fury both stood behind and slightly to the side. Mother Maradath studied the bear-headed trolloc for a moment then nodded her assent._

_As soon as the other two trollocs dissolved into nothingness, the remaining trolloc began walking in a circle around the Servant puppeteer. The vulture's head craned and twitched as it walked, moving the eyes on the sides of its face to point at what it was looking at. The beak was shaped like any other vulture that Prosht had ever seen, but it was so large, scaled up to fit the massive trolloc body, that it looked able to snap a man's arm, or perhaps even a leg. The human anatomy started at the base of the neck; thick hairy arms, massive chest covered with tattered bits of black leather and black mail, led down to feathered legs and huge, talon-tipped birds feet. The right hand carried a battleaxe raised high, which it swung in huge powerful arcs from time to time. Then the thing opened its beak and let loose some jerking, guttural, screeching, cry. "That is not the warning cry of an animal: it is the language of the trolloc. They are not smart, but are smart enough to have a language and follow orders. They are not brave, but are brave enough when the odds are in their favor or they have something they fear worse than death urging them on." The trolloc disappeared then. "Something they fear worse than death…something like…a myrddraal." Baggin had been studying for months and practicing with that _ter'angreal_ for even longer preparing for today, Prosht could tell that it was not only a class: Baggin was putting on a show._

_The thing that appeared before Baggin this time was much smaller; the size of a tall man of average musculature. At first Prosht could only see the back of the thing. He didn't think it looked all that bad. He had grown up listening to the same tales-o-naught that every other child had: The Dragon battling the Dark One in the sky to decide the fate of the world, trollocs eating babies, the Wolf King who married a falcon, Mat Cauthon - the general who won the hand of an empress in a card game, and a hundred others, including myrddraal. Myrddraal, Fades, Lurks. They seemed to have as many names as there were nations that fought against them. They inspired terror, or they were terror made flesh, or they fed on terror. They had no eyes, or their eyes glowed blood red, or their eyes killed on sight. They rode on shadows, or maybe they were shadows, no they were just called the Shadow's shadows. Nobody outside the Servants of All truly knew much about Fades or trollocs or the Shadow at all. Even amongst the Servants what some knew could fill lakes and others would be hard-pressed to overflow a thimble. This creature appeared no bigger than a man and from the little he could see. Its skin looked pale and waxy, but other than that it did not hold a candle to the trollocs that had made his Sister next to him faint._

_Then the myrddraal turned and faced him. That face had no eyes. It had cruelly jagged teeth inside a pale thin-lipped mouth, the smooth skin that existed where eyes should have been gave Prosht chills down his spine. For a moment he was sure the thing was looking straight at him, looking at him with an eyeless gaze. The feeling he got when he was sure the thing was looking at him was eerie. He did not like myrddraal. In a deep, visceral, bone jarring way. Today was the first time he had ever seen a Fade, and he hated them with every fiber of his being._

**DDDDDDDDDD**

The rest of the demonstration that day had registered, but seemed less important. He had watched Baggin run the Fade through a sword exercise that was supposed to show how it had serpent-like speed. Prosht didn't use a sword, and he cared little about how deadly the things were with steel. If it was close enough to cut him then he had already failed as a Servant of Battle. The flying draghkar had made quite an impression as well, swooping down at the assembled servants before climbing once again and repeating as it winged a circle around the Hall. Baggin had explained a lot about the flying shadowspawn, but for some reason neither the trollocs nor the draghkar earned the bone-deep, hot-blooded hatred that he felt the first time that imaginary myrddraal had fixed him with its eyeless stare. He had packed a few books about shadowspawn, especially myrddraal, when he had originally left the Towers for the Fifth, and he still had them in his pack now. He was engrossed with studying everything he could find about myrddraal. He wanted to know about their strengths, their weaknesses, abilities, and their shortcomings, wanted to know their desires, thought patterns, strategic abilities, fears, what they hated. He wanted to find out how to destroy them. Not as the individual monstrosities that they were. He wished to remove the insult that they were to the Creator from the face of the world. They should not exist.

These were the thoughts that tormented him from inside his mind as he entered Ni'Baras Stand. He paused before the inn and ran through a calming exercise in his mind. He imagined a flame in the darkness of the world; a flame surrounded by total black. He fed all of his emotions and thoughts and fears into the flame. He floated. He was the flame. With clarity of mind, on the verge of seizing the One Power, he entered the inn.

The common room was as he remembered it; a fire banked in the far wall, low tables surrounded by comfortable armchairs that had all seen more fortunate days, a slight haze of tabac smoke, and the fat innkeeper behind the counter.

"Master Turalde, it is good to see you again. Might I rent a room?"

The innkeeper looked up then from wiping the counter. Prosht sometimes wondered if innkeepers didn't spend their entire lives wiping counters and tables. He also wondered if that was so, how their arms weren't larger and their bellies smaller. "Master…ah…uhm…Prose! I would be glad to prepare a room, our finest now that the peddlers and merchants have all moved on." His face looked a little haggard; when last he had been here Trinl Turalde had been all smiles and joviality. "I must warn you though: Ni'Baras Stand has suffered since you left it last." The man reached under the counter and raised a flagon to his lips, tipping it up for a long moment, tossing it behind him into a sink, empty.

Prosht approached the counter and took a seat, setting his travel pack on the ground beside his stool. "I'll have an ale, and the news." He threw gold onto the counter.

Turalde looked at the gold but left it where it was as he poured. "I'm not usually one to talk of things like this to outsiders," Which seemed strange to Prosht since the last time he talked to the innkeeper the man had been almost eager to tell any tale that he thought could spark more business. "The only reason I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you is because Wyland seemed to know you, respect you even." The man turned his head, and all three of his chins, to each side then, assuring himself that no one else had come into the common room: that no one else was listening. "Last night Parn Alver went to Wyland's farm and found Wyland unconscious on the floor of his kitchen. His wife, Detra, was murdered, his daughters were murdered, and his son was on the short list for having been murdered himself. Jorle is alive, barely, and Wyland is upstairs; still unconscious." The fat man paused then, grabbed the gold coin off the counter and moved his eyes and chins again to check his surroundings, "Wyland was found with his hand on the dagger sticking out of his oldest daughter's chest, and she with a dagger of her own clasped in her hand."

The Servant's stomach tried to be sick; he did not allow it to be and moved from being the flame to dancing the dance with _saidin_. "Where is the boy?"

"What, Jorle? Never you mind him, the Wisdom is taking care of him upstairs. Marlie can be a trial, but if he's to be saved she'll be the one to do it."

Prosht fixed the man with a look that bided no argument, "Master Turalde I am a Servant of All, I serve the Light and I wield the One Power as you wield that washcloth. Do not trifle with me! Lead me to the Ibara boy, now." He had to save what he could of Wyland's family, and he could not wait for this fat innkeep to make up his mind. Wrapping the man in flows of air, he lifted him over the counter and placed him at the foot of the stairs. Turalde's eyed looked like they might pop right out of his head, "Lead on Master Turalde, and make haste."

The man scrabbled up the stairs on all fours. He righted himself on the second floor and ran down the hallway faster than Prosht would have believed possible. Halfway down the hall the man stopped and turned to his right, opening the door to a room, he rushed in with Prosht on his heels. "Marlie, this man…uh I mean there is a Serv…ah I mean Servant Prose wishes to see Jorle." As the grandmotherly woman looked up from the bedside Trin collapsed to the floor.

"Wisdom, I am a Servant of All, my name is Prosht. Please step aside so I might Heal this boy." Without really waiting for her response Prosht moved to the boy's side and delved him to find what needed to be done. Jorle Ibara lay on the bed white as a Sibernian goat. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow and a long, smooth gash across his throat. The flesh around the wound was red and angry with streaks of black running through. His hair was plastered back against his head. "What have you done for him thus far?"

"Master Prosht, I appreciate your concern, but you need to leave this room. I do not have the time or patience to play games with boys who want to pretend to glory."

Prosht looked back at her then, she was familiar. He had seen faces like hers all his life. She was capable, she was wise, and she knew these things. People did not disobey this woman. He couldn't afford to argue about abilities with her. She stood between him and the fireplace. Quickly and deftly he spun flows of air and fire creating a small inferno in the fireplace that died down into a small fire as he released the weaves and the logs continued to burn. As the woman's brown eyes turned back to him she simply nodded, grey locks streaming down her shoulders.

"I poulticed the cut with goatsweed and blackroot as soon as I saw him. Since then I have applied tincture of marestail and forced white tea and dreamsleep down his throat."

"You did well, now let me see what I can do." The gash across the boy's throat had nicked one of the veins in his throat, he had lost a lot of blood. The things the Wisdom had done had stabilized the boy. The things the Wisdom had done should have been lessoning the effects of the wound on his body and encouraging blood replacement: she knew what she was about. But something was wrong. He sent fire, earth, water, air, and spirit spinning into Jorle Ibara's body, deftly and quickly. He healed the wound and the fever and every minute malady he could find. He delved him again. Something was still wrong. Looking down Prosht saw that the redness and the black streaks had not lessened although the wound had closed as if it had never been. Prosht investigated the area. At the skin the foulness was bad enough, but inside the…whatever it was it felt evil, the evil was close to reaching the boy's brain and in the other direction close on his heart. Prosht didn't know what this evil infection was all about nor where it came from, but he was sure that Jorle would be lost if it was allowed to reach his head.

Water and earth passed right over the evil but spirit, air, and fire all sizzled and bounced back. He had never encountered anything like this. Still gently poking and nudging at the infection, he racked his mind for anything he had seen or read that might help. Something flashed into his memory, a technique, he could not remember where he had learned of it, but it was right. He knew it was, because it had to be. He spun spirit and air and fire into a tight web then used a web of earth and water to layer protection over the boy's flesh while leaving the filth of the infection exposed. He moved the spirit-air-fire web over the infection and let it settle down into the boy's throat. The evil inside the boy resisted the web, Prosht drew deeper and deeper of _saidin_ increasing both the protection of his earth-and-water web and the violence of the fiery spirit net. Slowly, so slowly, the vile blackness that was seizing the boy's throat, and trying to spread, was yielding. He was not sure how much longer he could maintain the flows he was handling; he already held so much of the One Power that the sweetness was turning to pain. The infection was burning away before his web, but progress was agonizingly slow. Prosht felt sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. He wanted to ask the Wisdom for a seat, his legs were becoming shaky, but he feared breaking his concentration even that much.

Small points of light began dancing across his vision. Prosht knew that his strength was flagging and he began to regret his vain displays of power: perhaps he could have spared a little time and wasted less energy to get his point across. He could use a bit more endurance right now. He was finding out what it was like to take on a task with the Power that was more than he could handle. He began to feel faint; he tried to focus, to see if the infection was gone. His last conscious thought was that he must release the fiery spirit net before he let go of the protective one or he risked burning Jorle Ibara's throat out from between his head and his chest. As he blacked out he hoped that he had succeeded, at least, in not killing the boy himself.


	10. Fists on Air

**Chapter 9 "Fists on Air"**

He could hear voices. They were far away. They didn't matter. They were only echoes, bouncing back and forth down the canyon of his despair until the words were hardly discernable from the black sounds of his mind. He wasn't sure if he could remember his own name; if you don't even know your own name, how important can the echoes of others really be? He let his attention drift away from the echoing words from far away. He tried to concentrate on where he was. It was dark. He couldn't feel anything. He thought that was a good thing; he remembered there was a lot of pain waiting for him at home. That was as far as he got before the thought occurred to him that he did not really care where he was. He thought that maybe this echo-riddled black canyon might be a place that he could live with. There were bad things in other places that did not seem to be here. He would stretch out in here for a while.

"_He just needs some rest."_ The voice was familiar. The words were still garbled, from their long journey down the canyon to reach him, but he was sure he knew the voice. It seemed to be a young man. He tried to think about young men that he knew. He could not place the voice: he could not think of a single person that he knew, so naming a voice was outside the scope of his abilities.

"_He is rested already, yes?"_ That voice was less familiar, though not alien, _"His body does not need rest, physically he is fine. The Wisdom is right, his mind is injured, not his body."_ He wondered how one injured one's mind. The echo person made it sound different from a head injury, something that damaged the brain. He could tell that, to the echo man, the mind was much more…personal. Like the difference between being in a fire and burning your left foot and having terrible scars, or burning your entire face and having terrible scars. Both injuries were similar, but one was much more…personal…emotional was maybe a better word? He wasn't sure; he would ask this echo man if he ever came down into the canyon for a visit.

"_Can you fix him? Like you fixed me?"_ The young man again. He decided to call him the echo boy.

"_I would hesitate to try this on my own, after what almost happened with you, yes? I am loathe to risk another web that I am not very familiar with."_

"_But it worked with me! You can help him too, I know you can!"_ This time echo boy came reverberating down the canyon on top of echo man. Both voices bouncing around him at the same time was…unsettling. The echo boy quieted and echo man continued, one voice he could make out, two was just too much.

"_I am sure that I can rouse him, this is just unfamiliar to me, not unknown as your sickness was. I can rouse him, but I think that he will not love me for it."_ He began to wonder what drama these echo folk were caught up in, he didn't feel interested, because he didn't really feel anything here, but he could tell that the echo voices held emotion; that the echo people cared about what was going on very much, they were very intense, as echo voices went.

"_Then please, rouse him! Do not wait, do not simper! I cannot lose him too!"_ Silence rushed in as echo boy's words died out. He guessed the conversation was over. The silence went on. He began to think about whether or not he had ever had a voice. Did his voice echo too? Was he an echo person?

"_Very well."_

Then came the light. It was so _wrong_. Light did not belong here, even he knew that much. He did not like this new light very much at all. It disturbed him. The light spoke to his soul of impossible things. It spoke of home, and life, and his son. The light told him that he had a son, waiting for him. It told him that he needed to leave the canyon and face life. For his son. A name floated through him. _Jorle_. It told him that he had to climb out of the canyon for Jorle.

The light that had intruded into his solitude stopped talking. It began to surround him, to warm him. He knew that if he took one step in the right direction that this new companion would carry him the rest of the way. The light urged him, beckoned him home. But it would not, or mayhap it could not, drag him unwillingly. He had already decided, he knew what was waiting out there for him, there was devastation out there. The knowledge had reawakened in him with his son's name being whispered to his soul. Out there was hopeless, irreconcilable, unforgiving devastation.

He had already made his decision. He could not feel the things that were waiting for him out there, but now he had knowledge of them. The light was pleading with him to come out of this canyon, to come home, to face what he had done. And live with it. He could not feel derision, but he knew that was the right response to this bright energy that wanted so much from him. He had already made his decision.

Going home meant that he could never again forget. He would have to leave forgetting here, and go on to remembering. He had already made his decision.

He moved forward and embraced the Light forsaken light around him. _For Jorle_.

**DDDDDDDDDD**

When Wyland's eyes blinked open, then shut, then blinked open again, it was all the signal that Jorle needed. He bounded from the armchair near the fireplace, making very sure not to jostle the Servant, to the bed. He grabbed his father's hand, and in the next moment his father's eyes opened and stayed open. Jorle grabbed Wyland up in a fierce hug. He didn't care if this Servant was a stranger, it didn't matter who was in the room. The Dragon could have been there, his Da was alright. His father didn't say anything he just raised his arms and encircled Jorle in return. They sat there silent, for what seemed a Light-blessed eternity while it lasted, and too brief an instant when it was over.

"Da! They're all gone Da!" He was getting almost hysterical, "Mom, Avilene, Shaundi, and I thought I would lose you too. Da, what is happening?"

"Jorle, you may want to give him a moment, yes?" The Servant stepped forward, closer to the bedside.

He was wearing a white shirt today and brown trousers; his own black attire had been peeled off of him and was now drying after a good cleaning. The man himself had been so exhausted that he had remained asleep longer the Jorle had. Jorle had woken early that morning with a hunger in his stomach that growled in disbelief at the beef broth that Marlie had Jolene Turalde bring up. After he had finished the broth, asked for a meal, been rejected, allowed his stomach to growl at the wisdom in response, and finally haggled out a light meal at midday and a real dinner, she had sat him down and explained how the Servant Prosht had saved his life, and then she had told him about his father.

Running upstairs to shake his father, to scream at him, to wake him up, had ultimately only scared him more than he already was. He didn't understand how his mother could be gone. He could not believe that his sisters wouldn't be there to tease him anymore. It was not possible. His Da's head rolling around limply as he shook his shoulders had been too much. He had backed slowly out of the room and sat down hard in the hallway. Helplessness had seized him then. He started choking on his breath, sobbing. The tears ran down his face hot and steady. He didn't know how long it had taken him to recover himself, but when he did he remembered the Servant that had Healed him was still in the inn. He ran up and down the hallways yelling "Servant! Servant Prosht!" up the stairs, down the hallway, down the stairs. Marlie Cawthen had caught him by his elbow and nearly jerked him off his feet. She had agreed to set a chair outside the Servant's room, and forced him to agree to wait there for the man to wake instead of going in and forcing him awake.

"Of course, Mast…er…Servant Prosht." He stepped back away from his father, not very far, and the Black Brother with a white shirt on stepped back in and looked at his father for a long moment.

"Master Ibara, are you steady? Can you sit up?" Wyland obliged, silently, though the look he directed at the Servant was decidedly not friendly. "Good, are you groggy? Are you able to speak?"

Jorle was sure that the Servant was not expecting it when his father leaped at him from the bed and grabbed his throat with two large and calloused plowman's hands. Jorle was surprised for certain sure. The two men crashed to the floor, his father landing astride the channeler's chest. He found himself unable to move as the man who had never picked or risen to a fight in Jorle's memory kept a crushing grip on the Servant's throat with his left hand and began to punch the man's face repeatedly with the other. Jorle stood in a daze, watching the terrifying violence that was erupting out of his Da. His hand moved faster than Jorle would have thought his Da could move, and each blow landed with a force that gave Jorle gooseflesh. He shook himself and stepped up and grabbed Wyland's right arm with both hands, trying to stop it from plowing into the Servant's face once more. He felt himself lurch forward and stop suddenly. He knew that the blow hadn't landed because Wyland realized Jorle was there trying to hold him back, and not because Jorle had restrained his arm. His Da craned his neck around to look at him, and the eyes looking out of that face were colder and harder than his father's eyes had ever been before.

"Jorle," His neck was strained and bulging, veins throbbing from where they burst out onto his neck, to where they dove into the base of his skull or into his jaw. "Go wait outside." It was a moment that showed Jorle how very little he knew about his father. The smiling giant who had tossed him into the air and caught him back out of it was nowhere to be seen. The ever-patient teacher who always saw a lesson through to the end, and always had another lesson ready to teach, might not have ever existed to look upon this man in front of him.

"Da, no! He saved my life! He saved _your_ life!"

"He didn't save my life son." He paused then, turning to look down at the Servant. Jorle looked down then too. He was sure that he felt his eyes pop out of his head then and bounce back. The Servant did not have a mark on him. "It looks like he saved his own, though." Then he looked up at Jorle again, "Maybe he spared my life, just now. He could have done several things instead of just deflecting my fist, or whatever he did. Spared my life; maybe. Saved my life? No."

Jorle released his father's arm and sat down hard on the bed. His head was spinning.

"Are you finished Master Ibara?" Servant Prosht said from his back. There was a definite stony edge to the man's northern accent now. "If you are, you will get off of me now, yes?"

Jorle's father looked down at the man for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether there was any way he might be able to get around the channeler's defenses. Finally, he must have decided against trying again. He rose and towered down at the Servant. "I suggest you leave, _Servant_." He spat out the word with disgust, as if saying it dirtied everyone within hearing. "If you stay you will have to watch your back day and night, or you will have to kill me. I am not stupid, I know what you will do to me, but I cannot stomach your presence here, so leave, or kill me now, or wake to find yourself dead one morning." Wyland grabbed a shirt off the washstand next to the bed and threw it on over his head as he stalked out of the room. Servant Prosht's eyes had gone from surprise, to confusion, to thunderheads during Wyland's tirade and exit.

"I do not know what it is that your father thinks of me, but it is not true." Servant Prosht rose to his feet, and straightened his shirt and trousers before continuing. "I assure you there is some sort of misunderstanding; I am here to help your father. I have no ill will toward him. Know this however, I will not be assaulted at every turn, and I will not suffer threats with patience unending, yes? If he tries to kill me again I will bundle him off to the Towers for trial on charges of Assault on the Light."

"JORLE!" His father bellowed from down the hall.

"I have to go." Jorle looked at the ground really hard, trying to figure out what was going on as he shot out the door, trying to catch up with his father.

**DDDDDDDDDD**

"Da!" He could hear Jorle hurrying down the hall after him. He couldn't talk right now, so he stormed on down the stairs. He kept fanning the flames of his ire. That goat-licking northern murderer! He had sat right here in the common room of this very inn and said, '_Walk the path willingly, or suffer the Wheel's forcing_.' He hadn't believed it a threat at the time; who would from a Servant of All? But what else could have happened to his little Avilene? That had not been his daughter! The look on her face was so strange…so greedy…so scary he couldn't even believe her face was capable twisting into such an ugly feature. She had been under the power of some outside force. That…_Prosht_, he _would not_ call him by the title of Servant, had used the One Power to twist his sweet little daughter! _O Light! Detra!_ All three were gone! _Avilene! Shaundi! Avilene forgive me! O Light why?_

He came off the bottom stair and exploded into the common room, making straight for the bar.

"Brandy Trin. Three brandies. No, Jorle is right behind me, make it four, the boy could use one too."

"Wyland! The Servant was able to Heal you too!" The Innkeeper's face showed joy, surprise, and something hidden. "I'm—"

He tried to continue, but Wyland cut him off, "He didn't Heal me." He growled.

"What? Then how? What happened Wyl?"

"He invaded my mind and reminded me of something I needed to be reminded of. He wanted me to follow him to Althoran. What good would murdering my family be if all he had to show for it was an empty husk of a man who refused to wake up?"

"Murder?" Trin's eyes were truly peeled back in surprise; this wasn't the feigned interest that he donned to wheedle more drinks into travelers with. "Wyland think what you're saying. He is a Servant of All. They are supposed to protect people, aren't they? Servants are sworn to serve the Light! How does that come into murder Wyl?" Trinl Turalde sometimes wore a façade that he felt would improve his business, but when it came down to winnowing out the weevils, Trin always got down to the core of a situation quickly. "I cannot imagine what you are going through Wyl, I won't pretend to. But you cannot go mad. Don't accuse a Servant of murder! He'll tie you in knots with the Power and hang you from one of your own apple trees to die of hunger."

"Accuse!" Jorle had finally made it down the stairs. "Da just tried to pound his skull into pudding!"

"Jorle!" Wyland tried not to be harsh, but he needed silence from his son just now. He turned back to Trin, "Are you going to pour the brandy or aren't you?"

"Sure Wyl. Sure." Trin's hands were shaking as he set four brandy glasses on the counter. As he poured the drinks he spilled brandy all over the counter. Trin _never_ spilled a drop-not a drop-of his wares.

"Trin, what is the Dragon in the room? You've been holding something back. Now you're shaking like a leaf. What is it Trin?"

His old friend looked up at him, and Wyland could see fear in his eyes.

"Light Trin! What's the matter with you? "

"L-l-look Wyl, I didn't want to tell you…I thought you could use few days first…to…well you know, to…Oh burn me! Wyl, some folks in town are calling you a murderer." He may have seen Wyland's face darkening at that because he rushed to follow with, "Not everyone Wyl, not many really. But the thing is, it started getting around and now some folks who thought it was ridiculous are starting to agree that there should at least be a trial. And then Jorle comes down here saying that you were up there trying to kill the Servant that saved his life! It just sounds bad Wyl."

Wyland stared at him in silence for a long time. Then he reached out and grabbed a snifter of brandy and gulped it down. Then he moved on to next, and the next, and he even downed the one he had ordered for Jorle. After he set the last empty back on the counter he finally spoke, "I am a murderer Trin. I walked into my kitchen to find Detra lying, shoved under the dining table, in a pool of her own blood."

Tears were welling up in his eyes, he didn't even try to hold them back, "As I knelt down beside my dead wife, my Detra, I heard someone sneaking up behind me, so I reacted Trin. I spun and I killed in an instant; I spun around and I murdered my Avilene." He broke off then, unsteady, unsure if he could get out another intelligible word. Then it burst forth out of him "I MURDERED MY OWN DAUGHTER! There should be a trial Trin! And there should be an execution, maybe two."

"Father stop that! I was there too, you know." Jorle was yelling at him, "You were not the only one involved in what happened that night. I was almost killed too. I saw what was going on better than you did, you saw the result: I witnessed the act. There was something wrong with Avilene, Da"

"I am sorry son, I don't mean to-"

"Let me talk! Mom and Avilene were in the kitchen starting dinner. I was standing in front of the mantle, trying to decide on which book to read again. I felt a warm wet flood seem to spread from my neck to my groin, I tried to look down to see what was happening, but instead I collapsed in a heap.

"My head hit the chair, the one you liked to sit in when you read to us out of 'The Tales of Olver Two-Hilts and Birgitte Goldenbraid'. I ended with my head facing the hall to the back of the house and my chin tucked into my chest. I heard Avilene whisper in my ear, '_Sorry brother, I really am. This is the price he set._' Then I watched her feet walk over to the hall and wait against the wall. She called out for Shaundi, and when my baby sister came into the room, she froze. Our eyes locked. I tried to scream at her! I tried...but… but I…" Jorle choked back a sob.

"It's okay Jorle, you don't have to do this right now son." Wyland reached over and placed and his left hand on his son's shoulder.

"Yes I do! I do have to get it out. You sit there saying horrible things about yourself. People sit out there with their families, whole and safe, and they say bad things about you. You are the only person I have left, and I will not let anyone call you a murderer. Not even you." His voice was thick with emotion, Wyland could tell that every word he got out was a victory. "I tried to call out to Shaundi, tried to warn her. I was helpless, I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. As a final cruelty, though, I was conscious. I watched as Avilene slid from the wall, up behind Shaundi, while she was frozen in shock at the sight of me crumpled on the floor."

He paused, taking a deep breath and steadying himself. "I watched it all, it happened so slow. It was the worst thing ever Da. Avilene's arm rising from her side, slowly, slow like a flower turning to face the sun. It was so slow that I could have stopped it a hundred times over. I tried to stop it Da, I tried a thousand times...I...I…"

Wyland pulled Jorle into a hug, "I know son. I know." That was all he said, all that he thought he could say. He wanted to run upstairs and rip that Servant's head off of his shoulders. If he thought he could have succeeded he would have tried. If he thought that the Servant would at least retaliate and end things, he would probably try. But to try to kill someone and then to get held out at arm's length like a child swinging his arms through the air, he couldn't handle that man making so little of him and his suffering again. He felt a rage boiling up inside of him. He felt anger like nothing he had ever felt before. It threatened to sweep him away.

"Wyland Ibara." Wyland spun to the sound of Prosht's voice. He saw him standing at the base of the stairs. He had changed back into his black shirt, pants, and coat. Wyland felt himself coiling to spring. He leapt forward, forgetting his earlier failure and disgust. He grunted, loudly, as he hit an invisible wall about a span away from where Prosht stood. "You will listen to what I have to say, Master Ibara."

Wyland turned to leave, and felt invisible…ropes?...encircle him from ankle to neck. He opened his mouth to shout his hate at the man dressed all in black. As his lips parted he felt his jaws forced open, and then felt his tongue forced down as some unseen force gagged him. Unable to move, and unable to speak, Wyland stared his hate at the northerner.

"You will listen to me Master Ibara." The man reached beneath his coat and pulled out a dagger. It had a curved blade the steel grip was painted red on the butt-end. "This is the dagger that was found in the hand of your daughter, Mistress Cawthen just showed it to me." Wyland had never seen the dagger before. "It is at once unique, and all too common, yes? Master Ibarra, this is the dagger of a Shadowfriend."

Wyland struggled against his bonds. He tried to twist free, tried to force the gag of nothing out of his mouth. Tried to throw the lie back in the man's face. Tried to leave. Tried without success. "Master Ibara, the truth is hard to deal with, and Light, but we all know you have plenty to deal with right now, yes? Here are the facts: We know of these blades from the mouth of a Shadowfriend who was caught fleeing the scene of a murder in Mayene. These are delivered to people upon their acceptance of the Dark One as their 'Great Lord'. They are both a symbol of devotion to the Dark One, and a tool to carry out his will.

"Your eldest daughter killed your wife and your younger daughter with this dagger, and almost succeeded in killing your son with it as well." He stopped then, looking into Wyland's eyes, as if to mark there whether his audience was registering with his speech. Wyland closed his eyes after a moment and began to cry. "I am so very sorry for your loss Wyland. I truly am. Believe me or don't, that is your decision. But you will not accuse me of using the Shadow's tools for my own ends, yes? It smacks too much of being called a Shadowfriend."

Wyland felt the pressure on his mouth disappear. He felt his weight back on his feet as the invisible force binding his body withdrew. He stood silent, staring at the man dressed in black. "My daughter was not a Shadowfriend." The words came out measured, clipped, terse. "There haven't even been any real Shadowfriends for thousands of years, surely you of all people know that. Not since the Dragon killed the Dark One at Shayol Ghul."

"But there have been, Master Ibara. You may still think that I was spinning a fantasy for you when I told you that you were needed in Althoran, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and the Wheel requires balance, yes? The Towers have been recording evidence of Shadowfriends for the last century and a half. Something wicked is coming this way Wyland, it is coming from Shayol Ghul, and it is not like anything that any living person has dealt with before.

"A few years ago towns and villages along the northern border started disappearing. Whole towns, every man, woman and child within the town, missing. The buildings remained, but no person to recount a tale, yes? There was human blood smeared across the walls of houses, runes and words scrawled out in blood; some language that we still haven't been able to translate.

"You, Wyland Ibara, are meant to be a part of this, and if we figured that out, I would bet gold to silver that the Shadow has too, yes? You make your own choices, but if that beating that you tried to give me up there was for revenge sake, then you had the wrong side under your fist: the Shadow did this to your family, for the Light does not work in such ways. I will stay here in my room upstairs for a while. I will not come searching for you again, if you want to find me, I will be here."

Wyland looked through Prosht for a moment, thinking about what he had just heard. And about what had just happened to his life. "Where are my girls, Trin?"

"They are at your farm, yeaterday morning Marlie sent up to Ahmerlins Field for Harrol Congar. He's out at your place getting them ready now."

Wyland gave one last look over at the Servant, "Let's go home Jorle, we have a job that needs doing."


	11. Two Prayers

**Chapter 10 - Two Prayers**

Jorle did not say anything to his father as they made their way home along Whitechild Road. He knew the job that his father was taking him home for. The only job in the world that mattered to either of them right now, the only job in the world that neither of them could talk about.

Jorle glanced at his Da. Wyland was hiding behind a face of stone, but Jorle knew him too well. The emotions, the rage battling tears, both tightly reined in by resolve, were plain for Jorle to read like a book. He looked straight ahead, not wanting to force conversation. Not wanting to accidentally see his father cry. They trudged on like that through the rest of the daylight.

Dusk was paving the way for true night when the Ibara men arrived back at the farm. Jorle and Wyland stopped in the road. Together, they stared at the cottage that was more nightmare than home now. Finally, Wyland turned away from the house and headed for the barn.

"We'll sleep in the barn tonight. Tomorrow, we make places in the orchard for your Ma and sisters." No matter what battle was playing on his father's face, his voice was cold and hard. He followed his father into the barn, quietly. They both made pallets on the floor from loose hay, and lay down without supper, or fire, or talk. Though he wished for nothing else, sleep was a long time coming. And when it finally did come, his sleep was fitful.

No sign of sunlight came in through the barn doors when his Da shook him awake. An occasional note or two of birdsong cut through the darkness as he stood and brushed off the remnants of his bed, but the songs were short and cautious things; birds tempting the dying night to find their voice.

"You've got a better hand at woodcarving than I do, son. I am going to start digging, I want you to make the markers. On your mother's there should be a singing mimicker; she loved the way they could sing any bird's song. Your mom sang a fair song herself." His Da's voice never trembled, but he could see a tear starting down the corner of his eye, "Avilene's should—"

"Avilene! But Da, she—"

"WAS MY DAUGHTER AND YOUR SISTER!" The ferocity made Jorle take a step back. Wyland paused and took a deep breath, tendons that had sprung forth from his neck slowly settled into the background, "Today, that is what matters, son. She is gone, that is payment enough for what she may be responsible for, that and the payment I make now with every breath. Sometimes we take responsibility for our children's debts, or our parent's. Trust me, if I live even just the year, I'll pay her debt tenfold."

"Yes, Da."

"On Avilene's, carve a rose. And on Shaundi's…do you think you can carve that rock beside the river? The one she would beg you and Avilene to take her to. The one she liked to dive from."

Jorle remembered the rock. He could carve it in his sleep; it was the place he and his sisters spent every free moment, it seemed, for years. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Good then, and take a care to match the lettering to that on the older markers. You have until sunset, I'll have all the rest ready."

"Yes, Da." Jorle stood watching as his father grabbed a shovel and a pick then turned and walked out of the barn in the direction of the orchard. The younger Ibara began gathering his carving tools next to the workbench. He found a wide plank of seasoned oak that Wyland planned to begin a new bookshelf with. Jorle measured the plank into three sections and began to saw.

**DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD**

Wyland Ibara worked silently in the shade cast by the branches of the apple trees. Steadily, unflaggingly, the shovel bit down into the earth and came back up depositing soil in growing mounds next to growing holes. He never stopped his shovel, but to climb out of one hole and begin the next. As the sweat poured out of every inch of him, so too the tears he had been holding back came.

There, in the orchard that he had always looked on with pride and respect, the final resting place of the Ibaras, Wyland worked, and wept, alone.

**DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD**

Once the sun was well risen, Jorle moved out of the barn to work in the sunlight. Later, as the sun began to dip toward the mountains in the west, he sat on a rough bench with two grave markers beside him leaning against the barn. The third, still under the knife, sat in his lap.

His mother's, done first, had a pretty good singing mimicker surrounded by intricate vines and floral work. His mother loved anything decorated with vines and flowers. He thought she would have liked the mimicker amidst the small flowers. Shaundi's was done too. It showed the large rock next to a pool in the river that he and his sisters had jumped off of so many times. He had carved a background of trees and two children swimming in the pool with a third, the smallest, in the air between rock and pool.

He could not forgive Avilene, or even begin to remember her as his sister: all he could see was her standing behind Shaundi raising that awful, ugly knife, all he could hear was '_Sorry brother, I really am. This is the price He set._' He worked diligently, though, making the single rose in a vase as beautiful as he could. Not because she deserved such, but because his father did. When he finished Avilene's marker he looked up to see Wyland emerging from the orchard.

His Da didn't look at him, but walked directly to the back door of the farmhouse; moments later he came back through the door cradling a body in his arms. Jorle began to rise to help carry them out to their graves, but stopped halfway up and sat down again. "Da will want to do this part himself," he said quietly to himself.

Twice more Wyland walked out of the orchard and into the house, twice more he entered the orchard with a body. Jorle gave it a few moments after his father reentered the orchard the third time, then stood, collected the markers, grabbed a shovel from the barn, and headed after him.

Wyland was standing at the foot of the smallest of the three graves, staring down at Shaundi, when Jorle walked up behind him. Wyland broke his stare and turned to meet his son.

"Well, let us see the markers, son."

Jorle walked around to the top of the graves and laid each marker out at the head of the girl it memorialized. A singing mimicker for his mother, a rose for Avilene, and a playful scene for his baby sister. He had spent all day working on the images that would mark the resting places of his family, spent all day to make them good enough for his mom and Shaundi, good enough for his dad. Laying there next to the graves, they seemed like awful mockeries.

"You've done a fine job. These are good work, Jorle." His father paused then, seeming to struggle with getting anything else out. "Thank you."

"No thanks, Da. Not for this."

Wyland nodded without looking at him.

"Detra Ibara, Avilene Ibara, and Shaundi Ibara. Our wife and mother, our daughters and sisters. We lay them down and give them back into your embrace, oh Creator, shelter them in the Light and keep the dark at bay." Wyland stopped and looked over at Jorle, "Would you add anything?"

Jorle nodded, taking a moment to staighten his thoughts, then taking another to find his voice. "Oh Creator, shelter the innocent, give forgiveness if it is right, and leave the rest to their rewards."

His father stared at him for a long time, jaw clenched. Jorle deferred to his father in most everything, but not in his prayers, not in his farewells. He stared back at Wyland, bracing for what he might do or say. Finally, Wyland gave him a short, quick nod, then walked back to the apple tree where his shovel rested.

"Jorle, go get us some game for dinner. I will stay and finish this. If you get back to the barn before I do, start a fire."

"Yes, Da."

**DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD**

The sun had set by the time Jorle returned with a rabbit and a pheasant nestled in his game pouch. His father hadn't finished in the orchard yet, so Jorle went about starting a fire and cleaning their dinner. He spitted both kills and was placing them over the fire when Wyland walked into the barn out of the darkness. Instead of the shovel he had carried earlier, he clenched a hammer in his right hand, the muscles in his big forearm bulging. The hammer was foreign to Jorle. The head was bigger than the hammers they used for building and repairs, but the handle was much shorter than the large one they used for driving posts. One side of the large head was honed to a wicked point.

"What is that, Da?" Wyland didn't hear him, shoving the handle of the strange hammer through his belt and walking past the fire into the dim, shadowed reaches of the barn. Jorle heard him shifting bales of hay and rustling other things about. He reemerged into the firelight with a bottle of brandy in each hand.

"My special supply. I keep aside the first and last bottle of every year." He held the bottles out in front of his chest as he lowered himself to sit on the log next to Jorle. "These two are the oldest. I made this batch the year I married your mother."

Wyland pulled the cork from one bottle with is teeth and spat it into the fire, then he bit the cork on the other bottle and yanked it out as well. Without looking Wyland held the second bottle out to Jorle.

Jorle hesitated for a moment before taking the brandy from his father. He took it slowly. The bottle was heavier than he had expected.


End file.
